[linuxkernelnewbies] qc-usb: Linux Driver for Quickcam USB cameras

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 07:33:11 -0800

http://qce-ga.sourceforge.net/

Linux Driver for Quickcam USB cameras

This site hosts the Linux driver for the QuickCam Express and other QuickCam-related and QuickCam-compatible USB web cameras. The original work was done by Georg Acher and was known as qce-ga; Jean-Frederic Clere took that driver and created the first Video4Linux (V4L) driver, enabling popular V4L applications such as Xawtv to display pictures from the webcam. Since then, a group of developers around the world have evolved the driver into its current state, adding support for new cameras and chipsets as they have become available. In the process, the driver became known as qc-usb to reflect the fact that it supports a wide variety of USB-attached QuickCam cameras, not just the QuickCam Express.

Current Version

The current version of the qc-usb driver is 0.6.6. Get it from the Sourceforge release page.

Supported Cameras

The qc-usb driver is known to work with the following webcams:

  • Dexxa Webcam
  • Labtec Webcam (old model)
  • LegoCam
  • Logitech QuickCam Express (old model)
  • Logitech QuickCam Notebook (some models)
  • Logitech QuickCam Web

Generally, any USB camera with a USB vendor ID of 0x46d and a USB product ID of 0x840, 0x850, or 0x870 (so, 0x46d:0x840, for example), should work. See How to find the USB ID of a camera.

For more information about QuickCam web cameras, visit the original qc-usb page.

Download

The QuickCam driver is currently available in two forms.

  1. The qc-usb driver was originally focused on the QuickCam Web, but should now work with all cameras that work also with qce-ga. It contains a superset qce-ga's features and is the preferred driver. Almost everyone will use this driver. Download it from our Sourceforge release page.
  2. The CVS versions available by following the Sourceforge CVS usage instructions. The module names are quickcam and qc-usb.

Installation

This section explains how to compile and install the qc-usb driver for the Linux kernel. For the most current instructions, please read the README that comes with the driver. These instructions explain how to compile the driver as a standalone module, which is the only option at this time because the driver has not (yet) been integrated into the mainline kernel.

The following requirements must be met:

  • Kernel >= 2.2.18, kernel 2.4.x, or kernel 2.6.x with USB and V4L support. If you are running a version 2.2 kernel, you really need to upgrade to at least 2.4.
  • Kernel source for the kernel you are running. The symbolic link /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build should point to the source directory.
  • A working installation of gcc >= 2.95
  1. Download the driver as described in the Download section and type the following to extract the source files (where X.XX is the current version number): 
    $ tar zxvf qc-usb-X.XX.tar.gz
  2. Compiling the source should then be a case of simply of cd-ing to the new qc-usb-X.XX directory and executing the following command: 
    $ make all
    After a few moments the compiler will produce a loadable kernel module (LKM) named quickcam.ko for kernel 2.6.x or quickcam.o for kernel 2.4.x.

  3. If the USB and V4L modules are already loaded, then you can load the module by typing one of the following commands (as root). For a 2.6.x kernel: 
    # insmod ./quickcam.ko
    Or, for kernel 2.4.x: 
    # insmod ./quickcam.o
  4. Once the quickcam module has been successfully loaded, it is time to fire up your favorite V4L application to start viewing pictures from the webcam.

Unsupported Cameras

Certain new Logitech QuickCam Express and Labtec cameras are reported not to work. These cameras have product IDs of 0x920 and 0x921. For these cameras, you might be able to use the SPCA5xx driver, which incorporates and, evidently, obsoletes this experimental driver.

Other webcams produced by Logitech are supported under Linux but use a separate driver. The following Logitech webcams are not compatible with this driver and are supported by other drivers:

Contact Us

The best (read, "most efficient") way to contact the developers is to email the qce-ga-discussion mailing list list with details of the problem you are experiencing. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the list, visit the mailing lists page. You can also track the mailing list via the Usenet reflector at gmane.linux.drivers.quickcam.general

Help us help you! If you are having compilation, installation, or usage problems, we'll need at least the following information to be able to help you:

  • Your Linux distribution and distribution version
  • The driver version with which you are having trouble
  • The kernel version (the output of uname -a should be sufficient
  • The camera's vendor and product IDs (the output of lsusb when the camera is attached should be fine
  • The camera sensor type, which is printed in the system log when the module loads
  • The output of /sbin/lsmod | grep -i usb
  • Any relevant output from /var/log/messages

The development list is only used for patches and development-related issues. Please do not send general usage questions or problems to the developers' list. The developers' list, like the users' list, is reflected to Usenet at gmane.linux.drivers.quickcam.devel.

Disclaimer

QuickCam® is registered trademark of Logitech. Neither this web site, the author of this web site, nor the developers and maintainers of the Linux qc-usb driver are employed by or affiliated with Logitech. This site exists to provide support to Linux users of QuickCams.

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