Can anyone recommend me a cheap webcam that has working linux drivers? I am running debian with the kernel 2.4.25-1-386, if that makes any difference. By cheap, I meant I was hoping not to spend more than $30 but suggest anything up to $50. Thank you.

Get Haugpauge WinTV Go or similar to its chipset. Its not a web cam but I did not have any trouble when using it with a program like GnomeMeeting. You just need a camera or a camcorder. Using a PCI capture card and a camera connected to its compsite connector will give you the highest quality so a program like GnomeMeeting can give you a good compression ratio.

Any other ideas? I was hoping for just a webcam.

You can go with a web cam but you will have to do a lot of work to make it work. First you have to to look at some hardware compability lists to found out what web cams works. After you get the web cam and you setup the software for it. You are going to run into light troubles. Web cams are known to not have good light sensitivity and the focusing is fixed. What I seen on shows on TechTV, many people has web cams but the quality sucks and very few of them used PCI capture cards.. By going towards the Haugpauge WinTV Go or with similar chipset, you have an easier time setting it up, getting better quality as you move towards better cameras or camcorders, and be able to capture up to 30 frames a second.

I don't care about light or photo quality. As I said, I'm only looking for the cheapest webcam I can find that will work with linux. By the way, I don't have a camera so your WinTV would do me no good. Thanks anyway.

It is answers like this that gives Linux a bad name. I had the same question. I have an Envsion web cam right next to me, and it does not work under Linux. So I also was curious about what web came indeed might
work.

I have a Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000, not sure what they go for these days, it was free to me. I didn't do anything, udev handled everything for me, loaded the pwc module and it just works.

This thread is three (3) years old. Back then web cams were not supported well in Linux. The reason why I suggest PCI video capture cards because it is true that they provide better quality for video conferencing. Video conferencing needs high quality video with very low noise to its job well over the network. The reason for this, noise in the video makes it harder for the codec to compress it. A codec can compress video with little noise several times better than a video with mostly noise. In my Dell Inspiron 1520, the web cam works well in one program, ekiga, but it does not work well in others like Mplayer. The quality of my web cam just sucks period. That is why I suggest PCI video capture cards because you can get a camera that far exceeds web cams and you can use it any program including any video conferencing programs.

Office support in Linux is horrible. I have to use Abiword (very buggy and limited), Gnumeric, and Kexi for my work. Making presentations are the worst in Linux. OpenOffice just sucks period. OpenOffice just gives Linux a bad name in the office suite department. Telling people to use PCI video capture cards instead of web cams in Linux does not give Linux a bad name or reputation.

OK this is an old thread.. but since it was drawn to the top

Here is a Linux webcam driver that is supposed to support over 240 different USB webcams in Linux..
http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca5xx.html

Well either way, the answer "use a video capture card with camera its better" does not meet his requirements as clearly stated. He wanted to spend $30-$50 and a cursory newegg indicates that just for the card we are talking $50 and then on top of that, he would have to acquire a video camera. This is what theory_prof was referring to. The man asked a simple question and you said "don't do that. do this much more expensive thing.".

WOW now we are dredging up threads that are over FOUR years old...

This must be a zombie thread, it refuses to die.. Now where's my chainsaw at...

Yes this is an old thread. Most of the $5-$50 webcams (available in India) work with ease in Linux (often spca..).

But what about the 720p-ish ones at Best Buy in US of A?

Capture card and real camera is a safer bet IMO. Fortunately I already have an old ibmcam that works. Or at least used to, they seemed to have screwed things up with current kernel API changes. In either case, my sony cybershot to the VCRs S-Video input to the capture cards F-Cable input works as a functional webcam. Just no 720p or 1080p like some of the newer ones seem to offer.

The reason this thread keeps getting bumped up is because it is the number one item returned when you Google search:

Linux compatible web-cam

With the hopes that this answers someone else's question (because it didn't help mine when I initially viewed it) as I have to have a web-cam for work on my windows based laptop so the other options here are not possible, here is a good website to find out compatibility for all kinds of hardware (not just web-cams) - http://www.linuxcompatible.org/ - you can search by you distribution of linux, by hardware, and by a whole bunch of other things. The quick way to get to the web-cam section is to click on compatibility lists link (on the top left) and then search under cameras.

Now with that out of the way, I have to agree with a few people here. When someone asks a question as to what web-cams are Linux friendly, and gives a price range, telling him/her to go a different route that costs more than his/her price range only discourages people from trying (even if may be a better solution). A lot of people get introduced to Linux by dual booting a PC that runs windows, and telling them not to use the hardware they may already have, just bought, or simply want to use does not really help them in any way unless there is no viable alternative. Plus it discourages new people from even trying in the first place because they see more tech speak that they don't understand. If there actually is no support at all one could say, there is no web-cam support under Linux, try this. However, since there is web-cam support, answering the question would seem to be number one priority. At least that's just my two cents. Maybe I'm wrong. Sorry to rant.

It looks like several people like this one for $29.99


Syba CL-MC-GF-BK Web Cams
Customer Reviews for SYBA CL-MC-GF-BK 0.35MP Effective Pixels 30 fps USB Golf Ball Design Built-in Microphone WebCam - Retail
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16826140018
Price: $29.99


on edit here is a cheaper place:

http://www.techsunny.com/Syba_USB_to...d-3219404.html

Qty 1 – 19: $21.99


Google Checkout had one for about $15.00 but they were out of stock