Genius 312 webcam

Nic Deane · 05-28-2008, 08:58 AM

My first post!

I am running Ubuntu 8.04 on a Haier HB-W18 laptop (Chinese with Korean keyboard) and everything seems to work except my onboard microphone - which doesn't seem to want to respond to Skype's microphone test. Any ideas here, too?

However, we have a Genius 312 webcam on another computer and perhaps I could get that to work on my laptop if I knew of Ubuntu Linux compatible drivers.

Any help from anyone?

Many, many thanks in advance,

Nic Deane

leocharre · 05-28-2008, 09:31 AM

Look up gphoto2 and see what's compatible.
This is not a good way to find hardware for linux- by having first the hardware, and then look up for a driver.
You should look up what is compatible with linux at present, and see what (webcam) is suggested. You can get cheap used hardware that will in the long run work better.

You can get anything to work with linux if you really want to. A lot of times it's better to just throw away that hairy wifi card or 6 button mouse and just use what is suggested.

Emerson · 05-28-2008, 10:14 AM

Run lsusb to get the ID of your device, then look it up at linux-usb.org

http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/searc...pattern=genius

Nic Deane · 05-28-2008, 04:11 PM

Thanks to you both for really quick replies. This is what is amazing about Linux!

Yes, I realize I should have checked for compatible hardware first - and I have done that for other things - modems, etc. However, Skype is new to me and the cheap and simple webcam was fine for my wife's XP machine and that's where it will stay.

I'll follow your advice and check and look for a webcam and software that will work on my laptop.

Again, many thanks!

Nic

leocharre · 05-29-2008, 08:10 AM

I think I see you refer to your current non-compatible or problematic hardware as cheap- Let's stress that getting hardware to work with linux does not mean you will spend more money!

For example, one of the things I care about with a camera is being able to set it up for remote capture- the computer controlling to take pictures via a cable (or something else). So I looked up gphoto compatible cameras...
My preferred models here - I can get used from ebay for around $100.