ah, interesting
it looks a bit like the resource that there was for the linux sharp pda (zaurus 5500) that everyone used
give it time! it'll fill up!
could it share space on another server whilst it's resource overheads are low?

I got the following error when I tried this;

chumby:~# mount -t usbfs null /proc/bus/usb
mount: mounting null on /proc/bus/usb failed

I'm trying to figure out how to capture images from a USB webcam plugged into my Chumby1 and then move them to /www.  Perhaps, I already have all the information I need.  Below is the output from dmesg with the webcam plugged in;

................
[45724.280000] usb 1-1.1: new high speed USB device using fsl-ehci and address 5
[45724.440000] usb 1-1.1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[45725.000000] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[45725.230000] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device USB 2.0 PC Cam (090c:b371)
[45725.250000] input: USB 2.0 PC Cam as /devices/platform/stmp3xxx-usb/fsl-ehci/usb1/1-1/1-1.1/1-1.1:1.0/input/input3
[45725.330000] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[45725.340000] USB Video Class driver (v0.1.0)
.......................
So it seems the webcam is ready to capture (???)

Somewhere else in the forum it was suggested to try;

cat /dev/video0 > /tmp/frame

and then figure out the file format.

I get ;
...........
chumby:~# cat /dev/video0 > /tmp/frame
cat: read error: No such device
............

Should I try to load an application like uvccapture onto the Chumby 1?
( http://www.quickcamteam.net/software/li … vccapture)

As an aside, I've searched through the Chumby forum for tips on connecting usb webcams to the Chumby and notice that the information is surprisingly scattered.  I realize that it's difficult to have a general answer for Linux webcam issues but perhaps a wiki article would be helpful.  I'll contribute as soon as I get something working.

Rich

OK, here's the output (repeats until break);

...............
imgtool 1.22 (built for falconwing)
Drawing image /tmp/img.jpg
Empty input file
dd: /dev/video0: No such device
....................
does this help?
....
.chumby:~# ls -l /dev/video0
crw-rw----    1 root     root      81,   0 Dec 18 10:24 /dev/video0

......

I have quite a collection of USB webcams.  I could try them one-by-one.  This one however works great on Ubuntu 9.10 without fuss (apparently UVC) and has the best image quality.  I eventually will compile a list of what works.

Any other thoughts on with this cam?

I appreciate your super fast reply.

Rich

Success on Camera 6!!

here is what dmesg reports;

[  523.590000] usb 1-1.1: new full speed USB device using fsl-ehci and address 5
[  523.730000] usb 1-1.1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[  524.180000] gspca: main v2.3.0 registered
[  524.230000] gspca: probing 0ac8:301b
[  525.930000] zc3xx: probe 2wr ov vga 0x0000
[  525.970000] zc3xx: probe sensor -> 11
[  525.970000] zc3xx: Find Sensor HV7131R(c)
[  526.000000] gspca: probe ok
[  526.060000] usbcore: registered new interface driver zc3xx
...........

The imgtool script successfully created img.jpg in /tmp

..............
imgtool 1.22 (built for falconwing)
Drawing image /tmp/img.jpg
Opening output /dev/fb0 fmt=0
fb handle = 4
Displaying rows from 0 to 479 inclusive
Closing frame buffer
0+1 records in
0+1 records out
..................
The image looked fine except the exposure control seemed off.

The webcam, by the way, is made by "ViMicro" and is one of the few supported ICAMView webcam servers (probably embedded Linux based).  I bought it on Ebay from a Hong Kong seller for $3.95.  I've since tried to buy additional cams with this hardware ID but most sellers don't know or can't be bothered to find the ID.

I can post the negative results for the other 5 webcams if that would be helpful.

Regarding Cam (090c:b371), there wasn't a /dev/video1 that I could see but I'll take another look.  There is a button but I've never seen any applications that use it

I'm impressed that Chumby has the gspca drivers already loaded.  Good work!

Am I correct that other people are successfully using UVC webcams on their Chumby 1's?

Rich

Here's a table of the webcams I tried.  I edited the dmesg output, perhaps deleting important details.  Sometimes dmesg wouldn't appear to change after hot swapping webcams so I rebooted each time to make sure.  The Philips IM camera seems like it should work but I repeated it 3 times without success.

http://justaddsquid.com/Pigcam/ChumbyWC.htm

(I couldn't figure out how to insert a table with BBCode so you will need to follow click on the link)

Running Uvccapture  on 090c:b371 in Ubuntu requires YUYV capture mode-not sure if that means anything.

I'm having a few problems getting uvccapture onto the C1.  I got the tool chain working and used the  lighttpd example for practice, everyhting worked fine.  It's taking me a while to work through getting a configure file for uvccapture that doesn't generate errors.  I'm sure I'll be ahead in the game when I finally figure it out.

Meanwhile, I've read that gstreamer should be able to handle webcams.  Gstreamer seems to already be loaded on the Chumby even though I couldn't find any discussion.  I therefore tried this using my  first webcam (090c:b371) ;

 gst-launch -v v4lsrc device=/dev/video0 ! filesink location=/tmp/video.out  

This actually ran for 10 -15 seconds before saying something like "out of memory" .  The video.out file (later transfered to /mnt/usb) was 5 Mb.  It has no header and I haven't been able to display it.  Strangely, I haven't been able to repeat this partial success.  I tried other variations such as;

 gst-launch v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! jpegdec ! xvimagesink
or
gst-launch v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! jpegdec ! filesink location=/tmp/img.jpg 

Here is the terminal output when it doesn't work (I didn't save it from the first time);
.........
chumby:/tmp# gst-launch -v v4lsrc device=/dev/video0 ! filesink location=/tmp/video.out
Setting pipeline to PAUSED ...
Pipeline is live and does not need PREROLL ...
ERROR: from element /GstPipeline:pipeline0/GstV4lSrc:v4lsrc0: Could not get/set settings from/on resource.
Additional debug info:
v4l_calls.c(418): gst_v4l_set_chan_norm (): /GstPipeline:pipeline0/GstV4lSrc:v4lsrc0:
Error setting the channel/norm settings: Invalid argument
ERROR: pipeline doesn't want to preroll.
Setting pipeline to PAUSED ...
Setting pipeline to READY ...
Setting pipeline to NULL ...
Freeing pipeline ...
..........

I'm not sure what was different the first time.  I had been trying to set up syslog for uvcvideo as;

modprobe uvcvideo trace=7 

Retracing my steps didn't seem to work.
I'll continue to struggle with uvccapture.  Perhaps, someone could suggest some gstreamer commands syntactically correct for the Chumby.

I got fswebcam working on the Chumby.  Fswebcam captures images from several webcams which did not work properly with either ffmpeg or uvccapture.  Functionally, it is equivalent to uvccapture, capturing still images to a png or jpg file.  It can also do a few tricks such as averaging to reduce noise.  It uses GD libraries not used by the other two programs which may explain the different behavior.
On the release website, http://www.firestorm.cx/fswebcam/ , they note that the latest updates,   “ Corrected a number of memory leaks and a potential buffer overflow.”  We’ll see.

For example, a Logitech Quickcam IM (0x46d/0x8a6) was recognized by Chumby and uvccapture produced files without error warnings but all the images had a band of static at the top of a solid green field, without any real image.  Interestingly, the Quickcam and uvccapture had the exact same behavior in Ubuntu 9.10.  Fswebcam produced satisfactory images on both the Chumby and Ubuntu but with a thin red line at the bottom of the image in both cases.

The Quickcam also works with cheese on Ubuntu, which is gstreamer based.  I still haven’t figured out if the Chumby has all the gstreamer components already loaded to capture single images.

I was hoping a real Chumby expert would jump in and offer you help with your webcam.  I’ve got my webcams working on the Chumby but usually only by using bad linux stylistic form.  So, take warning.
I’m not surprised data copy from /dev/video doesn’t work for your Logitech webcam, my experience is that this rarely is a useful approach. 
Yes, you need additional libraries for fswebcam.  You can see this most easily by using the command, “ldd fswebcam”.   You should see ;

chumby:/psp# ldd fswebcam
        libgd.so.2 => /lib/libgd.so.2 (0x40026000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x40072000)
        libjpeg.so.62 => /lib/libjpeg.so.62 (0x4019b000)h
        libfreetype.so.6 => /lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0x401c3000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x40230000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.3 (0x40000000)
        libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0x402dd000)

libgd.so.2 is the file you need.  My approach is to just copy this to /lib folder.  You will need to make the flash drive w/r  first;

mount -o remount,rw /

I recently purchased on Ebay a Logitech  Ultra Vision (046d:08c9) (supposed to be very good in low light-actually only just OK).  For some reason, this webcam doesn’t seem to work with Chumby+fswebcam but  works fine with Chumby+uvccapture.  For uvccapture you will need libjpeg.so.62.
I’m happy to put the Chumby binaries for fswebcam , uvccapture , and req. libraries in a download directory.  But, I’m not sure where.  Let me know if you need the binaries.