Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000 and GNU/Linux

Here are some tips I have collected while trying to make my Microsoft LifeCam Vx3000 work under the latest Ubuntu. I have a 64 bits system and my aim was to make my camera work with Skype. The hardest part was to find the correct gspca module sources that worked with the latest kernels.

1. Check whether the web-cam is recognized at all So first, I had to check if the camera was seen at all or not. ~$ lsusb + lsusb Bus 002 Device 014: ID 045e:00f5 Microsoft Corp. LifeCam VX-3000.

One of the line returned by lsusb clearly indicates that my web-cam is recognized. If your web-cam does not appear, try to unload and reload ehci_hcd: ~$ sudo modprobe -r ehci_hcd ~$ sudo modprobe ehci_hcd

And then retry lsusb.

2. Make sure v4l1compat is loaded Check whether the v4l1compat module is loaded or not by typing the following: ~$ sudo lsmod | grep v4l1_compat

If it not installed, you need to install it. If you have a 32 bits system, you need to install libv4l-0; if you have a 64 bits system like me, you need to install both libv4l-0 and lib32v4l-0: ~$ sudo apt-get install libv4l-0 lib32v4l-0

3. Install cheese To do this first part, you will need to check progress using cheese: ~$ sudo apt-get install cheese

Startup cheese, click on Video and check whether you can see an image or just white noise. If you do see an image, you can jump to step 4. If like me you could not see anything, follow on..

4. Install GSPCA Make sure your linux kernel sources are installed and accessible from /usr/src/linux. Now, download and install the latest gspca module version: Go to this page: http://linuxtv.org/hg/~hgoede/gspca/ (used to be http://linuxtv.org/hg/~jfrancois/gspca/ but got merged back in) Click on the bz2 link on the left side and save it under /tmp Open a terminal and type the following (the compilation itself can take several minutes): ~$ cd /tmp ~$ tar xfvj gspca-<version>.bz2 ~$ cd gspca-<version> ~$ make ~$ sudo make install && reboot

Now, try to run cheese once again and see if this work. If it does not, first check that the gspca module is loaded. If not load it. ~$ sudo lsmod | grep gspca

5. Make Skype work If Skype still does not work, you need to help it to get there. You need to force Skype to use the v4l1 compatibility layer, it is not yet compatible with v4l2 apparently. So you have to set the LC_PRELOAD environment variable to /usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so if you are on a 32 bits system or /usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so if you are on a 64 bits system. To just try it, open a terminal and type: ~$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype

Now, you should it be able to see your web-cam image in the Skype video options. If not… well then good luck continuing the search ! Finally, I made that change permanent (at least, until a future Skype upgrade): ~$ sudo mv /usr/bin/skype /usr/bin/skype_real ~$ sudo echo LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /usr/bin/skype_real > /usr/bin/skype ~$ sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/skype

You could also just create an alias in your home for this. Overall, I hope this helps you as it can seem like a never-ending frustration to use some web-cams under Linux, while many other web-cams work out of the box ! If it was useful to you or if you found something I could add, please leave a comment !