Compile a GL860 driver (GenesysLogic USB camera devices)

Anaxis · Post by **Anaxis** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:29 pm

WARNING: I RARELY HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I'M DOING. AS SUCH, TAKE THIS POST WITH A PINCH OF SALT, COS I COULD BE HORRIBLY WRONG, AND IF YOU FOLLOW MY DIRECTIONS AND BREAK SOMETHING, I SHOULD BE CALLED A COMPLETE NEWBIE AND RIDICULED FOR IT, BUT NOT HUNTED DOWN IN COLD BLOOD.

That being said, let's start, shall we?

If you are using a laptop with a built-in webcam, such as an ASUS C90S (like I am), the webcam drivers are sometimes difficult to find, and even more difficult to use if you're just starting out (like I am).

First, go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/gl860/files/ . There is a list of recent drivers that have had improvements made to them, and the most recent as of this post is the 2009 Feb driver. Download that package, and extract the .tar.gz file to your desktop.

Open a terminal, and enter

Code: Select all

cd ~/Desktop/nvgl

Then, type

Code: Select all

./install

From here, you have a couple of choices. You can use the wizard, which may or may not work depending on your computer model (it didn't work for me, so I'll include those steps as well). To know if this is gonna work easier to use the wizard or not, simply minimise the terminal, and open up the nvgl folder on your desktop. Open the readme, and have a quick scan through it. If you see the make and model of your laptop, do not use the wizard.

The wizard is fairly straighforward, it'll ask you a series of questions about your camera's megapixel dimensions, and your options to each of these questions is either [y] or [anything else] (both options without the brackets). If you choose NOT to use the wizard, you'll choose [anything else] twice.

In the case of a C90S, when it asks you to use the wizard, choose [anything else]. Then, it will ask you to choose which driver suits your camera best. Referring to the readme, the driver that suits a C90S best is

, so enter that (without the brackets). This will add the GL860c driver to your drivers in Mint. 

 

After this, open up Cheese or Camorama (or get them from the package manager if you don't have one or the other). If the programme shows up with vertical lines and your webcam appears to be on and not working, don't panic, this is just a resolution problem. Open up the preferences in Cheese or Camorama, and lower the resolution from 1600x1200 to 640x480. Then, the picture should show up.



If the driver is working, whichever one you added to your Mint driver pool, in order to start the driver at startup, type [code]gksu gedit /etc/modules[/code]. This will open up a gedit of your modules to start up with list. Find the first entry, and immediately underneath it, simply type [code]gl860[/code] it doesn't matter which driver you actually added, because if it was added to the list, even if it was GL860c, it was renamed gl860 when it was compiled.



I think that's all there is to it. If the gurus wanna add to it, feel free, I take no credit for this really, cos I haven't really had too much experience with Linux. Hope it helps someone though!