Ubuntu, Creative Live! Cam Video IM, ov51x & Skype

Hi Guys, sorry haven’t been posting, exams and all that.

A while ago, I got my Creative Live! Cam Video IM webcam working with Ubuntu. Not to say it wasn’t easy, not having much documentation (or that documentation locked up somewhere in the intenet, in Google 12th Search Page

So I decided to post here what to do (some of this is from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ov51x).

Get linux headers

Get the linux headers for your system, so that you can compile the drivers once you downloaded them. To do this, open a terminal window and type

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`

Get the modules

Get the modules for your webcam:

wget http://www.rastageeks.org/downloads/ov51x-jpeg/ov51x-jpeg-1.5.7.tar.gz

(If this results in an error, check the [rastageeks ov51x-jpeg directory], maybe you have to download a newer version)

Ensure the drivers landed into a directory you know…

Extract the drivers

Move to the directory where your downloaded drivers are, and extract the source files from the tar files.

tar -xvf ov51x-jpeg*

and Change directory to where your sources are:

cd ov51x-jpeg*

Prepare the installation files

make

Compile

Compile the modules:

sudo make install

Install

And install them:

sudo depmod -A
sudo modprobe ov51x-jpeg

You should now be able to enjoy images from your webcam!

Skype

Now to get it working with Skype, open a terminal (or use the existing one open) and type

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.conf

And in the gedit window that appears, type in the following at the end of the file

# Work With Skype
options ov51x-jpeg forceblock=1

Then save the file, close the window and then in the terminal, type

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/options

And in the gedit window that appears, type in the following at the end of the file

# Work With Skype
options ov51x-jpeg forceblock=1

And it should now work with Skype! (Note: You will need to go into Skype and set it to use it separately)

Have Fun!

Files Move to Launchpad

Due to the technical limitations of Gnome-Look, I am now moving all project and downlaods (that aren’t art) to Launchpad. The Contraband Crunchbang Page is located here

https://launchpad.net/crunchbang-tips

To download files that are mentioned here, go to the above url, click ‘Download project files‘ in the sidebar and you are set (or you could just go to the below url).

https://launchpad.net/crunchbang-tips/+download

Just so you know…

Ambience

Hello Readers! A while ago I noticed that there were no Startup & Shutdown sounds for Crunchbang, nor an easy way to configure to have them; so I set out to fix this.

The result – Ambience.

Ambience is a small graphical and command-line program to effectively and easily set Startup & Shutdown Sounds. And don’t worry, there aren’t any daemons running in the background, slowing down you system (this is the ‘Faster Ubuntu’ afterall ).

Ambience uses a clever system of just running at startup and logout to minimize any lost memory/cpu power, but give you all the multimedia power you want!

Below are instructions on how to get it set up and working!

Installation

First of all we need to get it installed, to do this:

Download the file at

http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=77406

And save it to your Home folder. Then type the following into a terminal

sudo dpkg -i ~/77406-ambience_0.1.1-1_i386.deb

Ambience should now be installed on your system!

Now we have got it on our system, we need to start it up, do this by typing in a terminal

ambience --gui

The GUI part of the program should now load, and you’ll be faced with a screen like this

Right, first you’ll see the two sections, one for logon (or startup) sounds and one for logout (logging out). NOTE: Because we haven’t got any sounds configured yet, you will see the play buttons cannot be pressed, this will change in the next step.

Configuration P1

Lets start configuring some sounds then, first download a sound that you like from the internet etc. and save it in your Home Folder. Then if you still haven’t got Ambience open, startup it up again using the command ‘ambience’ and depending on which event you want it to sound, click the respective ‘Edit’ button.

A file chooser dialog should come up, and in this, navigate to the sound file you downloaded earlier, and click ‘Ok’. Ambience then sets this sound as the one you want to use, and you will notice the play button for this event can now be selected. If you were to click on this, you may now hear a preview of your currently configured sound. NOTE : You may now delete the file you downloaded, Ambience keeps a copy of it for safe keeping

Configuration P2

Now we have got our sound selected, there is one thing more to do. We need to tell Crunchbang to call on Ambience on the Logon, Logout or Shutdown. We do this by running the following command in the terminal.

sudo ambience --setup-logon

Or for logoff

sudo ambience --setup-logoff

Ambience will now configure Crunchbang to do as you wished, this should only take a few seconds, at which point you will be met with that magnificent word, “Done”.

NOTE: If you wish to change your sound after you have run your command, don’t worry; just go into the Graphical part of Ambience and select a new sound, there is no need to run the setup again!

Now all that is left to do is logoff or logon back on again and you should be met with the sound you chose earlier!

The Crazy Idea – Uninstallation

You can remove Ambience like you would any other program, through Synaptic. However you may start get a few small errors if you don’t let Ambience undo the changes it made earlier. To do this, run the command

sudo ambience --uninstall

Then Ambience will undo the changes it made, however it will leave the sound files you configured, so if you ever realise your mistake of uninstalling it you may re-install it with them already still loaded. NOTE : However you will have to go through the steps of Configuration P2 again.

How have you been getting on with Ambience?
Post any problems (or preferably praise ) in the comments.

gPicView

I have just come across a great, lightweight, simple image viewer that works well with Crunchbang, it is called gPicView. It is made by the creator of PcManFM and resembles the photo viewer in Windows XP.

To install it, the best way is to get it from Crunchbang’s repository

1) Configure your system to use Crunchbang Repository
http://www.crunchbang.org/wiki/CrunchBangLinuxRepository

2) Install gPicView with this command

sudo apt-get install gpicview

3) Start gPicView up with the command

gpicview

4) To set it as your, default image viewer, click on the preferences icon in gPicView, and select ‘Make gPicview the default viewer for images’

Done!

Gray Crunchbang Usplash Theme With Boot Text

This is a uSplash for Crunchbang that supports showing the boot text! (Screenshots at the bottom)

Below are the details on how to install it!

1) Download the theme archive at the link at the bottom of the page and extract it to your home directory

2) You now need to install uSplash (since it doesn’t come default with Crunchbang (well not yet anyway ), to do this, run the following command in a terminal

sudo apt-get install usplash usplash-theme-ubuntu

3) Now we have to configure your screen resolution in uSplash, to do this open a terminal and do one of the following (If your resolution is not featured here please post a comment with your screen res and I shall modify the theme accordingly and then post instructions for your resolution):-

• If your screen resolution is 1024 x 768:

chmod +x install_1024_768.sh && sudo ./install_1024_768.sh

• If your screen resolution is 800 x 600:

chmod +x install_800_600.sh && sudo ./install_800_600.sh

This may take a few minutes, what it is doing is set your screen res in uSplash’s configuration, copying the uSplash theme to the /usr/lib/usplash directory and then setting it as your default theme

4) Once it has finished, the next time you reboot or shutdown you should have a Crunchbang uSplash theme working!

5) If for any reason you wish to uninstall the theme and put it to the default ubuntu one (or another) just run in a terminal:

sudo ./uninstall.sh

[Download Link]
http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/CrunchBang+Linux+uSplash+Gray+-+Text+V.?content=76599

[Screenshots]