[kde-linux] ChatCam webcam

[Duncan]

Robert Rea posted on Thu, 05 Mar 2015 14:52:57 -0500 as excerpted:

> I picked up this cheap webcam to see if it works. I plugged it in to the
> usb port and nothing happened. Any idea on what to try next?
> 
> Of course the only OS listed on the box is XP, but I thought I would try
> it.

I presume you're on OpenSuSE, given the lists you sent to.  As a gentooer 
I won't know anything about suse-specific tools, and as a gentoo-kdeer, I 
have much of the device-auto-detection, etc, turned off, so I wouldn't 
/expect/ anything to happen on simply plugging the thing in.

What I'd do, however, is try commandline tools like lshw and lsusb, to 
see if the device is detected and as what (many of these webcams run on 
chips that you'd never guess from the branding), and then check for 
kernel drivers, googling as necessary.  Once I had the driver installed, 
I'd pick a webcam viewer app (asciicam is an interesting one that can be 
run at the commandline, that's pretty basic and thus useful for 
troubleshooting, seeing if it even works at all) and install it, and go 
from there.

Tho I recognize that's not likely to be much help for the GUI-oriented 
user that "plugged it in and nothing happened" seems to suggest, and may 
have left it for someone with SuSE or at least more GUI level answers to 
give, except that I wanted to comment on the below, from your sig...

[link from sig]

> http://www.petard.us/gallery

While the general and blog links work fine, the above gallery needs some 
*SERIOUS* attention.  The pictures and category headings do show up at 
the bottom, but (at least in firefox 36) before that, there's vertical 
pages and pages of warnings and errors like...

Warning: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone 
settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the 
date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those 
methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely 
misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for 
now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /home/
petard/public_html/gallery/Version.php on line 41

Deprecated: Function eregi_replace() is deprecated in /home/petard/
public_html/gallery/init.php on line 139

Deprecated: Function eregi_replace() is deprecated in /home/petard/
public_html/gallery/init.php on line 141

Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /home/
petard/public_html/gallery/init.php on line 164

Deprecated: Function ereg() is deprecated in /home/petard/public_html/
gallery/lib/lang.php on line 537

Deprecated: Function ereg() is deprecated in /home/petard/public_html/
gallery/lib/lang.php on line 537

Deprecated: Function ereg() is deprecated in /home/petard/public_html/
gallery/lib/lang.php on line 537

...


And more strtotime() warnings in the category sections where I guess the 
descriptions should go.

Clicking on the slide show link... works, but again, its waaayyy... down 
the page, under pages and pages of warnings.

Similar story with the category and individual picture pages.

If you can update the config to get rid of all those warnings, great.  
But be aware, a page like that with so many warnings, etc, basically 
shouts unmaintained web site that's likely to be easily cracked, so I'd 
check everything thoroughly to make sure what's running is what you 
INTEND to be running, not what someone else cracked you to run.  For the 
same reason, if you don't believe you can keep it updated, please 
consider taking down at least the gallery, because as it is, with all 
those warnings, etc, it really /is/ shouting unmaintained, easy pickins 
to crack, and that's NOT a good thing (unless of course you're running a 
deliberate honeypot).

Tho I enjoy looking at what people consider interesting enough to post to 
their websites, including blogs and galleries, and for that reason, if 
you can update it and keep it updated so it's not a cracking invitation, 
please do so, as it'd be a shame for the gallery to fall off the web.
=:^(

But better off the web than the cracking invitation it unfortunately 
seems to be ATM. =:^(

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman