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Making Webcam (Logitech Communicate STX) work in Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

Making Webcam (Logitech Communicate STX) work in Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

How to get Logitech Communicate STX working with Intrepid Ibex 8.10 and OpenCV

I needed to get my Logitech Quickcam webcam working within Ubuntu 8.10. A new problem came into play when I realised that the new Ubuntu 8.10 it´s a bit far from perfection in this area.

The problem with webcams and Intrepid right now (9-Marz-2009) is that Intrepid comes with a new version of libv4l and the applications haven´t migrate their
code yet. You can see a better description on the bug here.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libv4l/+bug/260918


So each application using these library should take care to change their calls to the new version.
Some of the applications under Ubuntu Intrepid could work using these hack:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so name_of_the_application

Others just don´t work because their haven´t been migrated yet.
One of those is OpenCV, a computer vision software.

To make it work you should do this trick:

1. Download a version of OpenCV that solves this issue - http://github.com/nzjrs/opencv/tree/master
2. Install it by:
    ./configure
    sudo make
    sudo make install


Your are pretty finish with the installation, for compiling an example you have to do it like this:

 gcc example.c  -o example -I /usr/local/include/opencv/ -L /usr/local/lib/ -lcv -lhighgui

 and to execute it you should do:

 LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so example

Hope this could help someone, I spent 2 days trying to solve it.

Any comment about how to make OpenCV work with Processing will be wellcome

4 comentarios

mchiareli -

Hi,

I tried with the "master" version and worked for me:

http://github.com/nzjrs/opencv
/tree/master

I tried to use a opencv with java:
http://ubaa.net/shared/processing/opencv/

And is to much slow, i don't no if is a problem with the changes to use the old driver.

but the opencv is working.

Gabi -

Hi mchiareli,

You are right. At the moment I download the OpenCV version, it had the configure file in it.
It seems John change it a little bit and supress the configure file.

I just tried, to test if there was a problem as you told me and messed up my OpenCV :(

Maybe we can send he an email telling him what happened.

I am also interested to know what changes did he into OpenCV in order to make work.

I hope we can solve it soon.

Cheers

mchiareli -

I can't compile the source... =(

Dont have the configure file, I tried to generate with autoconf... but i got a error...

could you compile without problems?

mchiareli -

Hi, thanks for the fix.

I'll try.
you can get a example about Processing and opencv here:
http://ubaa.net/shared/processing/opencv/