update 2009.11.27:
please go to this post for webcam setup, where easier instructions and links to latest versions of software is included !!
With the U810, the webcam has two annoyances:
- the webcam is windows based, to webcam's firmware is in the windows driver, and needs to be downloaded to the webcam before using it
- the webcam is mounted upside down, so in some cases you may see the image upside down; it's needed to make the driver to automatically flip back the image, unless the video application can do it
1) to have the webcam firmware load to the webcam, you have to have the "R5U87x Userspace Tools" available here: http://bitbucket.org/ahixon/r5u87x/src/
having that package installed and compiled, then, as root, first unload the webcam module and then run the command to load the firmware:
# rmmod uvcvideo
# ./loader
r5u87x firmware loader v0.2
Searching for device...
Found camera: 05ca:1841
Camera reports negative microcode state.
Sending microcode to camera...
Enabled microcode.
Camera reports microcode version 0x0103.
Successfully uploaded firmware to device 05ca:1841!
will load the correct firmware to the webcam.
This action must be done on every computer reboot; I haven't automated this step, but it should be fairly easy to do.
2) once the webcam is set, just loading the kernel module will find the webcam; as root just type:
# modprobe uvcvideo
running dmesg you can see that the webcam is now detected:
[81252.074453] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device (05ca:1841)
[81252.077719] input: UVC Camera (05ca:1841) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb1/1-5/1-5:1.0/input/input25
[81252.077863] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
[81252.077871] USB Video Class driver (v0.1.0)
and from this point on the webcam is available in video apps like cheese or skype.
In cheese, there is one video filter which you can activate to automatically flip back the image, so it's not upside down.
To have the image automatically upside down back, so it shows ok, last time I checked I needed to manually apply a patch to the uvcvideo module, since this module didn't have any option to activate this 'filter' automatically; I'll check again later ...
update: I have already contacted someone that may help having this upside down annoyance fixed, so keep tuned for more info !!
