Sperrobjekt Weblog

A while ago, I succeeded in getting my Creative Vista webcam to work on Ubuntu Gutsy. I didn't use it for quite a while, then upgraded to Hardy, and as a result the webcam did not work anymore. I'm writing this partly as a reminder to myself so I get it up and running more quicky the next time

So here's what you need to do if your webcam stops working:

1. Remove any old ov51x-jpeg-modules-x.xx.xx-xx (using Synaptic or the like)
2. Check rastageeks for any updates, i.e. the latest version of the ov51x-jpeg driver
3. Usually there already is a .deb-package for convenient installation on Ubuntu: install it, ignoring any warning by gdebi
4. Follow the installation instructions, especially:sudo module-assistant a-i ov51x-jpeg
5. Now you can sudo modprobe ov51x-jpeg; if that fails, check dmesg for any error message, there may be options set in /etc/modprobe.de/options and/or /etc/modprobe.de/ov51x-jpeg
6. Enjoy!

Update: Using the webcam with Skype didn't prove that easy. There is a bug (in Skype, as I'm told) that prevents the ov51x-jpeg driver to work with its video function. There's a patch floating around in the Skype forums (ov51x-jpeg-core.noblock.patch.txt). Downloading this, however, requires one to sign up to the Skype forums :O( Then, I couldn't simply apply the patch to ov51x-jpeg-core.c because it seems to be for version 1.5.5 or so. That's why I had to manually add a couple of lines to ov51x-jpeg-core.c and then recompile it. Finally, I had to add options ov51x-jpeg forceblock=1 to /etc/modprobe.d/options. And now it works.