WriteLarge.com

Did you try Cheese?

I know what you mean - one of the reasons I'm typing this to you on Windows is that seesmic won't record sound. Also, Linux was frying my machine and I just don't have the knowledge or patience to spend weeks working out why, although I will do in time as I'm determined to live a life free of proprietary software (bang goes my seesmic use then lol!).

But it's not all the community's fault, it's an inherent problem in the way the software industry works - the fact that we can't see the source code thus making it work in Linux is a problem, and while there's dollars involved, it's going to be a long process. It's a bit like asking David to go up to Goliath and ask for some of his knowledge on growth technology, he's not going to give his secrets away.

I've read lots recently about the Linux/OSS community not being innovative - perhaps part of this is the fact that there's so many utterly amazingly brilliant minds tied up with re-engineering proprietary formats instead of busy creating funky new stuff, even though they're doing a great job at that too - you just have to take a look at the OpenGL desktop stuff to see how much better the UI is.

Anyway, sorry about flooding your comment section, but it's just one of those things that gets on my tits, and as yet I don't know the answer to it, I just know it sucks.

I love Linux, and it's all too easy to blame the community for something which is really to do with dollars.

I find ekiga works mostly good, but it's still horrible and it only works for if you want to do something like skype (but much worse).

I basically want to use either skype or an OSS alternative with my g/f under linux, but time and again I find myself going back to my Mac to do that.

The reason is that linux does not have a video chat client that "just works". Skype has video, but none of my 3 cameras work under linux. Since skype uses the built-in video drivers of OS X (I am quite sure), it can recognize anything including a video camcorder plugged in via FireWire.

When I get to linux, though, it sometimes recognizes my cameras but never shows any video. I can receive video, but that's not enough for me.

Skype is in beta, so I can understand. But when I use Ekiga... well, it works, but it's so slow, and there are so few features, and it kept crashing... and my g/f just got very annoyed at all that, so in the end we went back to skype on OS X.

And then there's video editing in general. The only app that I find works for me is Kdenlive, but it is SO buggy, and is missing many features. I haven't even tried getting video from a camera with it though (I do screencasts), but I expect it's quite difficult.

So basically, the three things I want most in Linux are a video editor, video chat client, and audio editor that WORK without spending hours trying to figure the bugs out :( .. I think jokosher is getting there but gstreamer seems to have problems with my card, so there's no recording....

I'm hoping with Hardy there'll be some simple updates that fix these problems... We'll see, since IMHO that's the only place where Linux is lacking.

(and if anyone has advice let me know :) )

your first pic is Very familiar!!, i was Sooooo happy to get THAT after a week of trying to install it. still wont work with camorama but works fine with Amsn (clear pic and all!), but it's very grainy and the colour is all outta whack with xawtv. The Main prob is usein flash ( it just wont work ). i Love linux but it can be very frustrating at times.

I love my Eee PC, but it does run Linux, so let the fun begin!

I am happy Skype works with it, but Asus released it without video support... luckily the community figured out how to turn on the camera manually, and get video support with the latest Skype beta. Very cool.

Still, when I use my Mac, things just freakin' work, and I am thankful for that. Of course they often work the way Apple wants them to work, so it's a game of pros/cons on each side.

I've had similar problems with Camorama (triple image). Looks like it has some serious bug. My webcam is Trust's Spacecam 200.

Xawtv shows the webcam image perfectly. No luck with Flash and webcams.

I was wondering if there is a way to directly create
streams from that webcams (red 5) that can be viewed with a flash
client.