Getting Logitech camera working with Linux

2008-01-08 2-minute read

Josue gave me a USB camera made by logitech - and I’ve been meaning to get it working with my Debian Lenny system for a while.

I started by plugging it in and watching syslog:

	Aug 14 14:13:08 liberace kernel: [128348.749001] usb 3-1: USB disconnect, address 4
	Aug 14 14:13:12 liberace kernel: [128352.657450] hub 4-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 5
	Aug 14 14:13:12 liberace kernel: [128352.894212] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5
	Aug 14 14:13:13 liberace kernel: [128353.093083] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
	Aug 14 14:13:13 liberace kernel: [128353.119601] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=046d, idProduct=08a9
	Aug 14 14:13:13 liberace kernel: [128353.119610] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
	Aug 14 14:13:13 liberace kernel: [128353.119614] usb 3-1: Product: Camera

So far so good. I was hoping to see some reference to /dev/video, but that wasn’t part of the output and the device wasn’t created.

Next I tried:

	aptitude install qc-usb-utils

Still nothing. Then, I noticed that apt-cache show qc-usb-utils says: “These programs are completely useless without a qc-usb-modules package.”

There is no qc-usb-modules package (yes, Debian seems aware of that problem).

But there is a qc-usb-source package. I installed that package and then ran:

	m-a

That’s module-assistant - which makes building a kernel module a snap.

After running it, I had to do some digging to learn that the module it built is called quickcam (I tried modprobe qc-usb to no avail). The following successfully loaded the module:

	0 jamie@liberace:linux$ sudo modprobe -v quickcam
	insmod /lib/modules/2.6.25-2-686/drivers/media/video/quickcam.ko 
	0 jamie@liberace:linux$

But, unplugging and re-plugging the camera produced the same output in syslog and no /dev/video.

More web searching finally turned up gspca. I removed the qc-usb modules and then:

	aptitude install  gspca-modules-2.6.25-2-686

Followed by:

	 modprobe -v gspca

And, to load in on my next boot:

	echo "gspca" >> /etc/modules

And now, miraculously, Ekiga recognizes and uses my camera!