Red Hat Linux 7 Unleashed

By William Ball

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Lead Authors
  • About the Contributing Authors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • I. Red Hat Linux Installation and User Services
  • Chapter 1. Introduction to Red Hat Linux
  • Chapter 2. Installation of Your Red Hat System
  • Chapter 3. LILO and Other Boot Managers
  • Chapter 4. Configuring the X Window System, Version 11
  • Chapter 5. Window Managers
  • Chapter 6. Connecting to the Internet
  • Chapter 7. IRC, ICQ, and Chat Clients
  • Chapter 8. Using Multimedia and Graphics Clients
    • Linux Graphic Utilities
    • Common Graphics Formats
    • Basic Graphic Editing Clients
    • Using the GIMP
    • Displaying and Printing Graphics
    • Configuring Sound
    • Playing Audio CDs
    • Playing .mp3s
    • Playing Video
    • Using a Web Cam
    • Summary
  • II. Configuring Services
  • Chapter 9. System Startup and Shutdown
  • Chapter 10. SMTP and Protocols
  • Chapter 11. FTP
  • Chapter 12. Apache Server
  • Chapter 13. Internet News
  • Chapter 14. Domain Name Service and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
  • Chapter 15. NIS: Network Information Service
  • Chapter 16. NFS: Network Filesystem
  • Chapter 17. Samba
  • III. System Administration and Management
  • Chapter 18. Linux Filesystems, Disks, and Other Devices
  • Chapter 19. Printing with Linux
  • Chapter 20. TCP/IP Network Management
  • Chapter 21. Linux System Administration
  • Chapter 22. Backup and Restore
  • Chapter 23. System Security
  • IV. Red Hat Development and Productivity
  • Chapter 24. Linux C/C++ Programming Tools
  • Chapter 25. Shell Scripting
  • Chapter 26. Automating Tasks
  • Chapter 27. Configuring and Building Kernels
  • Chapter 28. Emulators, Tools, and Window Clients
  • V. Appendixes
  • A. The Linux Documentation Project
  • B. Top Linux Commands and Utilities
  • C. The GNU General Public License
  • D. Red Hat Linux RPM Package Listings

Using a Web Cam

Web cams have been around for a while, and are supported under Linux. Some models use the parallel port for transmission of video data, usually at a reduced resolution, such as 320x240 pixels and 256 colors. Web cams will vary in quality, capability, and support (one problem being that some manufacturers have refused to release specifications so that drivers may be developed).

Newer models now use Universal Serial Bus (USB) for transmission of video data. Although a number of USB Web cams are supported under Linux, you'll generally need to track down, download, install, and configure software drivers for Red Hat Linux to support your Web cam.

One older type of parallel port-based Web cam that is supported is the Zora Web cam (part of White Pine's CuSeeMe software package for Windows, or available separately). You can find its standalone Linux driver, the mcam client, at http://www.panteltje.demon.nl/mcan/.

Installing mcam is as simple as downloading the source tarball, decompressing the source code, then typing

   # ./make_x

Running the client is even easier. First, properly attach the camera to your computer, then type

   # ./mcam

After you press Enter, type 4,5,9 to cycle the camera from low to high power, and then to display continuous frame-grabbing (as shown in Figure 8.21).

Figure 8.21 The mcam client works with X11 and Linux to display continuous frames from a Web cam—even of penguins.

You'll also find that Red Hat Linux directly supports the IBM C-It USB video camera. Read the file ibmcam.txt under the /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-2.2.16/usb directory for more details. If you browse to http://webcam.sourceforge.net, you'll see a list of at least a dozen other supported USB Web cams that work by using special Video4Linux drivers. And if you'd prefer a standalone Web cam that works independently via Ethernet, consider Axis Communications'2100 Network Camera (which uses embedded Linux). Browse to http://www.axis.com for details.

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