I use a Triplex Microdia USB webcam, which works pretty well AFAIK with the sn9c0102 driver and v4l in my kernel. All is basically fine with the camera and kernel driver.

Initially, I was quite pleased to simply get the image on the screen, and a decent image too for the most part; it's a cheap but good camera.
I have been using two applications; VideoView and sn_webcam. I am pretty sure that ONE of them used to save snapshots, but either I'm mistaken, or one of them broke. Anyhow, currently VideoView closes completely when I hit the snapshot button, and sn_webcam works great, except when I click the snapshot button it claims to be saving a picture (with a filename and everything) but it's actually lying to me-- There's no picture anywhere on my entire filesystem.

So , once again I Googled for Webcam apps for Linux, and wound up at the same place I always end up at (and I can't recall the name of the page, but no matter) and I finally decided to try 'wxcam', available as an Ubuntu package, a .DEB, or source. SO I got the source, read the READMEs, and learned that it needed close to 30 MB of crap behind it to function. I went ahead and downloaded all this 'crap', installed it all, made slack-packages for all the parts, and then went and downloaded 'wxcam', which despite the 30 MB of stuff behind it, was a measly 68 Kb.
Well, 'wxcam' totally blows. There's no picture, just static, and the GUI is totally borked. The menu items appear for one second, then go away, so to select a menu item, ya have to be REALLY FAST and good with a mouse, but the GUI and menus are still barely usable, they're mostly missing from the window. When it starts, it claims to be looking for a 'file' but doesn't indicate where or by what name. The only button that works is the 'Save Video' button, but it's no good if its saving a video of static, and I don't want AVI's anyhow, just stills. Also, the EXIT button causes a SegFault.

All in all, crummy.

Bringing me to my request: (after the rambling -- thatnks for reading): Do you use a webcam program for Linux, that comes in a source archive, that snaps decent photos, maybe even offers several sizes of image-view window, plus offers a few filters like brightness/contrast, coloration, gamma, and that sort of stuff? And it ACTUALLY WORKS?

If so, please point me towards it

Thank you all!

I have been using camorama to check out my webcam (logitech IM... something). I got lucky: had I picked the box to either side of it on the shelf, I'd have got a dud.

I just checked and the snapshot is fine.

Only trouble I have is with the color-balance - the sliders don't adjust it and the colors are all inverted (red --> blue etc). The man page says it has record capabilities - never seen them. However, others have good results.

Hi Simon,

thanks for that tip. I also have a Logitech QuickCam Messenger, but the only reason I haven't been using it {instead of|along with} the Triplex (besides better image quality from the Triplex) was because of a bug in the kernel driver--- something to do with module_unload or some such thing. I can't recall the details now, it's been a while since I looked at it, but maybe the driver has been fixed since then. It wasn't a critical bug, but a bug nonetheless.
I will consider trying out my logitech again, since you mention it, as some of the camera apps are specific to that camera. Maybe one of them is quite good.

And I'll check camorama too. I did see it in my searching, just didn't try it... Yet.

I checked the camorama website and it seems that all the features are working an 0.17, just not in my ubuntu package (0.18). Probably the source comple in slackware will do the trick.

Missing is color correction, record, and effects.
No luck googling for camorama issues in ubuntu though.

The same camera is fine with skype and ekiga.

UPDATE: I'm still working on assembling the necessary deps for canorama :/ it is becoming dependency hell. Gnome-this, gnome-that, libthis-2.0, libthat-2.0... I will see it through however, and eventually letcha know how it works.

Also, I read somewhere that the red/blue weirdness you mention about the sliders, is switchable somehow. I get the impression they meant the sliders could be swapped or inverted or something. Hafta check into that later, if I find them weird..

Well... it tells you it's a Gnome2 app

Have you seen:
http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Webcams
... runs through v4l camera software. Includes some specifically for grabbing a still shot off a camera...

Indeed it does

I think I've been to that wiki page before. Having a look meanwhile anyways. But I WILL get everything together for camorama eventually. 28.8K dialup isn't anyones friend though, so it might take me a little while-- I'll have to get offline soon to use the phone ahh the wonders of modern technology..

EDIT: Unfortunately this (dependency mess) is a complete rats-nest by anyones definition, and in the interest of not losing sight of my goal, I have decided to stop installing the entire GNOME desktop/subsystem one piece at a time just to make one camera app work.
I am {now|still} open to further suggestions; if you have a webcam snapshot tool that you like, and fits the description I seek, please feel free to suggest it. I'm gonna look at some of the command-line ones too.

Thanks