[kopete-bugs] [Bug 176868] New: Algorithm to find video devices is not udev friendly and lead to not find webcams

[Olivier Perron]

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=176868

           Summary: Algorithm to find  video devices is not udev friendly
                    and lead to not find webcams
           Product: kopete
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: Debian testing
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
        AssignedTo: kopete-bugs at kde.org
        ReportedBy: olivier.perron12 at gmail.com


Version:            (using KDE 3.5.10)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Debian testing/unstable Packages

kopete first looks at /dev/v4l for something like video*. If it finds /dev/v4l
but no video* inside it, then it simply stop to search for any further device
and claims there are no video devices on the system.

The issue is that nowadays there are specific rules for udev that tell udev to
create "by-path" symlinks to make sure one can access any specific device
independently in which order it was connected to the system.

For v4l devices, the "by-path" link is as follows:
/dev/v4l/by-path/pci-0000:00:1d.2-usb-0:2:1.0
with pci-0000:00:1d.2-usb-0:2:1.0 being a unique identifier that always
identify the same device.
That "by-path" link actually points to the real device /dev/video0 (or video1,
or ...).

Because of this and the way kopete search for video devices, if udev sets a
"by-path" link, then kopete does not find any webcam on the system.

The device scaning code should be updated so that the search order is:
1) search for /dev/v4l/by-path/<something>
2) search for /dev/v4l/video*
3/ search for /dev/video*


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