I've posted on the forums before that I'm using Damn Small Linux installed on a Libretto ct110 as the brain of the robot. I've got a PCIMCIA USB card installed in it, which I use to talk to my microcontrollers with some custom C code, and it works great!
The only problem now is a camera. My robot needs to see, which basically means I have to figure out how to get a 2D array of pixels from a digital USB cam into my C code.
Unfortunately, trying to find a camera I can use, with an API or something that I can grab the pixels with, has been one of the most painful and frustrating things I've ever done with a computer and I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever be able to build a robot at all.
I have a Quickcam express, which actually has a third party driver for it, but I've never been able to install it correctly to either Damn Small Linux or Ubuntu.
So I'm curious to know if anyone else has done this succesfully with DSL, and might shed some light (preferably in a step by step format :] ) on how to get a digital camera up and running. At this point I'm basically willing to go and spend $50 on a digital camera as long as it's going to do what I need it to.Some webcams are supported natively, IIRC someone a while ago had a Philips one working, you might want to search that one up.
edit: they use the Video4Linux2 api to grab imagesAnd v4l is already included in Damn Small Linux right? I did do a search for it, and found a bunch of files on the system, but I don't know if they're setup or in working condition, or if that's something to come later.
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which actually has a third party driver for it
Which driver are you trying to get to work? Explain the process you used, etc.V4L is just a kernel api, it needs no userspace files, and if it has any files, they are in /proc.Next Page...
original here.