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Lone Programmer Writes 352 Webcam Drivers For Linux

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the twelve-cases-of-ballz-later dept.

mrneutron2004 writes "A French physician and ardent Linux supporter is the one man you can all thank for adding support for 352 webcams in Linux. The Open Source OS world may still be a bit of a mess when competing with the ease of Windows, but efforts like this make you wonder. One man with drive, tenacity, and no funding does what no one else can do. And none of the major Linux distributions back this guy's efforts, even the big players dipping into the corporate world's coffers."

1 of 450 comments (clear)

  1. Incorrect title by DaleGlass · · Score: 1, Redundant

    This guy wrote drivers that support 253 webcams, not 253 drivers.

    Linux isn't Windows. In Windows, a Creative webcam would appear in the device manager as a "Creative Webcam". In Linux, a driver supports the chip the camera uses, not the specific camera itself. Logitech or Creative usually won't be making the whole camera from scratch. Instead, they purchase the electronics from some chinese company, then build their own body around it, and write some software to support it.

    In the screenshots it can be easily seen that "Trust", "Canon" and "Logitech" webcams are all supported by the same driver.