i already know that some logitech cams work but what about other brands like
gigaware
microsoft
GE
etc...

and just out of curiosity will those built in webcams on those new really small acer lapops work

will a GE minicam work in linux

and how about those new acer computer that are tiny and have no cd drive, but a built in camera at the top of the screen

It is kinda hard to judge based on brand alone because the insides are what matter. There are tons of UVC cameras on the market now, they are cheap to produce and easy to setup on Windows, since they are fairly standardized, they also are easy to setup on Linux too.

I believe the camera in the Acer Aspire one that you mentioned is a UVC camera and should work with no problem.

There is a list of UVC cameras here that are known to work:
http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/

Being that there are so many rebranded generic UVC cameras on the market, this list is by no means complete.


There are other camera chipsets supported by Linux, but UVC based cameras are common, cheap and reliable in Linux.

Cameras supported by this driver are also quite common:
http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca5xx.html

which other chipsets are compatible and is there a list of all of the known models

and what is the chipset of a POLAROID A310 its a regular digital camera but it can be used as a web cam i don't think its a compatible chipset

what is the usual process of setting up a web cam, then making it work in skype

It is really hard to have a list of everything that is compatible, since there is just so much out there. There are a couple more drivers, but UVC and spca are the most common and cover tons of very cheap cameras. I have an older Logitech that is supported by the pwc driver, it works very nicely, here is their compatibility list. Those are the only 3 drivers I have any experience with.

Hard to say what is in that particular camera, Google doesn't seem to be too helpful. It is probably proprietary, since it is a 2-in-1 device. I wasn't even able to find Windows drivers for it that I could inspect the .inf file to potentially find the chipset maker.

As far as setup, I have 4 different cameras, 2 UVC, one spca and one pwc camera, I've never done any "setup", they just work. The drivers are already in the default Linux kernel. The UVC ones are built into laptops, they worked from the second I installed Linux on them. The spca and pwc cameras just worked as soon as I plugged them in, they were detected and the drivers were loaded without me touching anything. I don't even remember having to select a video source in Skype, except on my desktop which tried to use my TV tuner card first.

this is so cool that you don't need to provide drivers for the camera but the only things that still has me thinking is how to figure out the chipset of the camera you want to buy when your out shopping, is it on the package or do i have to check their inventory online then research the chipset before you buy it

I haven't seen a single camera list the chipset it uses on it ... yeah, you'll have to look it up. However, most logitech cameras will work, I bought several at random and they just worked ... it's best to check beforehand tho.

i'd rather save myself the time and just search for a logitech camera

thanks for the help
will this work in all distros or a select few

i use the following

vector linux
pclinuxos 2009.2 (the os that i use the most compared to all the other i listed)
simply mepis
puppy (not sure abhout this one)

Distributions with kernel 2.6.26 or newer come with the UVC driver, I believe 2.6.27 come with gspca, I'm not so sure about the pwc driver, but they aren't very common cameras anyway.

well i have pclinuxos 2009.2
what version kernel is that, will it work with my soon to be purchased camera

Type "uname -r" without the quotes into a terminal to see which version of the kernel you have.

2.6.26.8.tex3

i guess there is always the option of using their return policy whenever it doesn't work

a friend of mine as an itoy for the ps3 that he said works on pcs will this cam work in my linux desktop

just tried pclinuxos, easy peasy and ubuntu on my brothers acer netbook and the cam worked like a charm

kinda slower than it is in xp and the same for my father who uses vista (claiming that its the best one)