I have a few video capture cards with 4 video inputs and 1 audio input.
Mandrake 10 recognizes it as being a Brooktree Corporation BT878 video capture card.
The card came with software called pico2000 for Windows. I installed Windows 2000 but pico2000 crashes all the time. I need this PC to do security video surveillance. It's intended use is to sit in a closet and record what is sees move. All viewing of video, ether recorded or live, would be from done from remote.

I found lots of Linux software on freshmeat. Only problem is I found too much. I need a recommendation as to which software would meet my needs in a secure manner.

I need software with at least the following features.

1) Only record motion.
2) Web based or windows clients for live and recorded viewing.
3) Support for at least 4 cameras.

Have a look at Motion project - http://motion.sourceforge.net.

Live viewing is possible with the right web browser and the proper configuration of the webcam features. You can record combinations of motion-only videos, stills every N seconds and a stop-motion movie based on still every N seconds. They have recently started to support buffered frames, so that you can grab N frames from the buffer before a motion event is triggered.

The documentation is well-maintained and up-to-date, and there is a very active mailing list as well.