[opensuse] Funny/Sad story about Philips SPC530NC webcam on 11.4
The funny is that finally I can use my Philips SP530NC Webcam, including its embedded microphone within openSUSE 11.4 The sad is that to do it I have once again to use Microsoft Windows Xp as VirtualBox guest! Several months and kernels passed since my bug-report, but sadly nothing changed http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/wmeLDzcjeC9ggvstjU9V The same identical issue is still present on 11.4. This is one of the reasons why sometimes is better to have a "Microsoft option" near of you. -- Marco Calistri http://mcalistri.blogspot.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 18:15, Marco Calistri wrote:
The funny is that finally I can use my Philips SP530NC Webcam, including its embedded microphone within openSUSE 11.4
The sad is that to do it I have once again to use Microsoft Windows Xp as VirtualBox guest!
Several months and kernels passed since my bug-report, but sadly nothing changed
http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/wmeLDzcjeC9ggvstjU9V
The same identical issue is still present on 11.4.
This is one of the reasons why sometimes is better to have a "Microsoft option" near of you.
Or... you do your research and buy a webcam that is known to work in Linux... like a Logitech webcam. You cannot expect every device out there to work in Linux - we all know this sad fact. This is not to say that you cannot help out and get another webcam model working.... but... well, it pays to pick known working hardware vs. any random thing off the shelf in your local consumer electronics shop. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 19:06 Tue 12 Apr 2011, C wrote:
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 18:15, Marco Calistri wrote:
The funny is that finally I can use my Philips SP530NC Webcam, including its embedded microphone within openSUSE 11.4
The sad is that to do it I have once again to use Microsoft Windows Xp as VirtualBox guest!
Several months and kernels passed since my bug-report, but sadly nothing changed
http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/wmeLDzcjeC9ggvstjU9V
The same identical issue is still present on 11.4.
This is one of the reasons why sometimes is better to have a "Microsoft option" near of you.
Or... you do your research and buy a webcam that is known to work in Linux... like a Logitech webcam. You cannot expect every device out there to work in Linux - we all know this sad fact. This is not to say that you cannot help out and get another webcam model working.... but... well, it pays to pick known working hardware vs. any random thing off the shelf in your local consumer electronics shop.
The easiest thing to do is to pick a camera here: http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/ If you are stuck in a store urgently needing to pick up a camera I believe that UVC-compliance is a logo requirement for Windows Vista and Windows 7 so if it has one of those logos it should work. Good luck, Brandon -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Hallo Brandon Philips, op 2011-04-12 19:40 schreef je:
On 19:06 Tue 12 Apr 2011, C wrote:
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 18:15, Marco Calistri wrote:
The funny is that finally I can use my Philips SP530NC Webcam, including its embedded microphone within openSUSE 11.4 [...]
The easiest thing to do is to pick a camera here: http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/
So it should work, as Marco did actually pick one from that list: "0471:2034 Philips SPC 530NC Philips [+ green v]" -- Harrie Baken | Tekstbureau TekstBaken Copy-editing - proofreading - seo http://www.tekstbaken.nl/ | harriebaken@linux.com IRCNet #TekstBaken | Skype: harricot Registered Linux user #366560 | openSUSE 11.3 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tue 12 Apr 2011 at 15:05:33 (-0300 UTC) Harrie Baken wrote:
Hallo Brandon Philips, op 2011-04-12 19:40 schreef je:
On 19:06 Tue 12 Apr 2011, C wrote:
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 18:15, Marco Calistri wrote:
The funny is that finally I can use my Philips SP530NC Webcam, including its embedded microphone within openSUSE 11.4 [...]
The easiest thing to do is to pick a camera here: http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/
So it should work, as Marco did actually pick one from that list: "0471:2034 Philips SPC 530NC Philips [+ green v]"
Exactly Harrie! Thanks for your comment. Such HCL is wrong or at least it is "quasi right", since the video part is working on Linux instead the audio is not. -- Marco Calistri http://mcalistri.blogspot.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 15:34 Tue 12 Apr 2011, Marco Calistri wrote:
On Tue 12 Apr 2011 at 15:05:33 (-0300 UTC) Harrie Baken wrote:
Hallo Brandon Philips, op 2011-04-12 19:40 schreef je:
On 19:06 Tue 12 Apr 2011, C wrote:
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 18:15, Marco Calistri wrote:
The funny is that finally I can use my Philips SP530NC Webcam, including its embedded microphone within openSUSE 11.4 [...]
The easiest thing to do is to pick a camera here: http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/
So it should work, as Marco did actually pick one from that list: "0471:2034 Philips SPC 530NC Philips [+ green v]"
Exactly Harrie!
Thanks for your comment.
Such HCL is wrong or at least it is "quasi right", since the video part is working on Linux instead the audio is not.
Well, USB devices are controlled by multiple drivers so having the video part working is all that the UVC driver cares about. I missed that detail on this thread, sorry The archives seem to be broken on lists.opensuse.org so I can't look back through to see what you already wrote. What exactly isn't working? Thanks, Brandon -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tue 12 Apr 2011 at 15:42:38 (-0300 UTC) Brandon Philips wrote:
On Tue 12 Apr 2011 at 15:05:33 (-0300 UTC) Harrie Baken wrote:
Hallo Brandon Philips, op 2011-04-12 19:40 schreef je:
On 19:06 Tue 12 Apr 2011, C wrote:
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 18:15, Marco Calistri wrote:
The funny is that finally I can use my Philips SP530NC Webcam, including its embedded microphone within openSUSE 11.4 [...]
The easiest thing to do is to pick a camera here: http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/ So it should work, as Marco did actually pick one from that list: "0471:2034 Philips SPC 530NC Philips [+ green v]"
Exactly Harrie!
Thanks for your comment.
Such HCL is wrong or at least it is "quasi right", since the video part is working on Linux instead the audio is not. Well, USB devices are controlled by multiple drivers so having the video
On 15:34 Tue 12 Apr 2011, Marco Calistri wrote: part working is all that the UVC driver cares about. I missed that detail on this thread, sorry
The archives seem to be broken on lists.opensuse.org so I can't look back through to see what you already wrote. What exactly isn't working?
Thanks,
Brandon Hi Brandon,
The broken driver appears to be the snd-usb.. (if I remember the name correctly) BTW it should be the snd-usb-audio module that despite being correctly recognized by the kernel, prevents the internal webcam microphone to work. Regards, -- Marco Calistri The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. -- Winston Churchill -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tue 12 Apr 2011 at 14:06:00 (-0300 UTC) C wrote:
The funny is that finally I can use my Philips SP530NC Webcam, including its embedded microphone within openSUSE 11.4
The sad is that to do it I have once again to use Microsoft Windows Xp as VirtualBox guest!
Several months and kernels passed since my bug-report, but sadly nothing changed
http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/wmeLDzcjeC9ggvstjU9V
The same identical issue is still present on 11.4.
This is one of the reasons why sometimes is better to have a "Microsoft option" near of you. Or... you do your research and buy a webcam that is known to work in Linux... like a Logitech webcam. You cannot expect every device out
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 18:15, Marco Calistri wrote: there to work in Linux - we all know this sad fact. This is not to say that you cannot help out and get another webcam model working.... but... well, it pays to pick known working hardware vs. any random thing off the shelf in your local consumer electronics shop.
C. Funny again:
I bought a camera which appeared to be known to work in Linux as per the Linux HCL but it is not. And also about Logitech, if I would know which model work (both video/audio) with Linux, then I could try to invest some money again. Cheers, -- Marco Calistri http://mcalistri.blogspot.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 20:43, Marco Calistri wrote:
And also about Logitech, if I would know which model work (both video/audio) with Linux, then I could try to invest some money again.
I've got a Logitech C250... it's one of the cheapest ones they make. it works out of the box... just plug it in and it's good to go. Usually... usually... the UVC compatible ones will all work. Oddly the Philips one you have says it's UVC... so it should, in theory, just work. I've had Philips in the past and they worked OK... but they were quite old cams and were pre-UVC standard. C. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tue 12 Apr 2011 at 15:59:22 (-0300 UTC) C wrote:
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 20:43, Marco Calistri wrote:
And also about Logitech, if I would know which model work (both video/audio) with Linux, then I could try to invest some money again. I've got a Logitech C250... it's one of the cheapest ones they make. it works out of the box... just plug it in and it's good to go.
Usually... usually... the UVC compatible ones will all work. Oddly the Philips one you have says it's UVC... so it should, in theory, just work. I've had Philips in the past and they worked OK... but they were quite old cams and were pre-UVC standard.
C. Thanks C,
I will search for Logitech C250 specs and look at the price here (I'm in Brazil) then, possibly I will give it a try. Cheers, -- Marco Calistri "Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill." -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Tuesday, April 12, 2011 12:06 C wrote:
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 18:15, Marco Calistri wrote:
The funny is that finally I can use my Philips SP530NC Webcam, including its embedded microphone within openSUSE 11.4
The sad is that to do it I have once again to use Microsoft Windows Xp as VirtualBox guest!
Several months and kernels passed since my bug-report, but sadly nothing changed
http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/wmeLDzcjeC9ggvstjU9V
The same identical issue is still present on 11.4.
This is one of the reasons why sometimes is better to have a "Microsoft option" near of you.
Or... you do your research and buy a webcam that is known to work in Linux... like a Logitech webcam. You cannot expect every device out there to work in Linux - we all know this sad fact. This is not to say that you cannot help out and get another webcam model working.... but... well, it pays to pick known working hardware vs. any random thing off the shelf in your local consumer electronics shop.
C.
Philips webcams used to work fantastically in SuSE, all the way up to 10.3 IIRR. For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people. This PoS Logitech 3000 I have is crap compared to my old Philips 740 webcam (yeah, I know the 3000 is old too, but not near as old as the Philips ToU I have still). Back before the support of Philips webcams was taken out of the kernel or whatever and we had to install it by hand (which was extremely easy with the instructions), this webcam was the clearest, with the best colors, of any I've seen since...and that's including new webcams (though I believe that the Logitech Orbit works very well in the later suse versions, IIRR). So don't blame old hardware...that's a throwback, garbage excuse to the days of Windows - every version of it. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 04/12/2011 03:34 PM, Insomniac wrote:
Philips webcams used to work fantastically in SuSE, all the way up to 10.3 IIRR. For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people.
The original pwc module maintainer eventually quit out of frustration with the kernel maintainers. This was covered on Slashdot at the time and the "discussion" was furious. It very much seemed as if the maintainer was being singled out by the kernel people and intentionally and specifically blocked from including his modules. The module's maintenance was taken up by another developer who stopped maintaining it not long after. The original kernel module was in two parts, one of which was a proprietary binary which provided the larger format compression routines. The maintainer could not provide source until the NDA with Phillips expired, which occurred about a year after he quit. It's unfortunate the original maintainer quit: The original modules worked the best. They worked well up to OpenSuSE 10.3 but sometime before end-of-life, something changed enough to break the modules. Since then, nothing for these webcams has worked well, if at all. jd -- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 11:34:25 (-0300 UTC) j debert wrote:
On 04/12/2011 03:34 PM, Insomniac wrote:
Philips webcams used to work fantastically in SuSE, all the way up to 10.3 IIRR. For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people.
The original pwc module maintainer eventually quit out of frustration with the kernel maintainers. This was covered on Slashdot at the time and the "discussion" was furious. It very much seemed as if the maintainer was being singled out by the kernel people and intentionally and specifically blocked from including his modules. The module's maintenance was taken up by another developer who stopped maintaining it not long after.
The original kernel module was in two parts, one of which was a proprietary binary which provided the larger format compression routines. The maintainer could not provide source until the NDA with Phillips expired, which occurred about a year after he quit. It's unfortunate the original maintainer quit: The original modules worked the best. They worked well up to OpenSuSE 10.3 but sometime before end-of-life, something changed enough to break the modules. Since then, nothing for these webcams has worked well, if at all.
jd My sincere compliments to this unaceptable group of devs which are willing "to close an open software".
The result is that Microsoft will continue to be present massively as the "de facto" O.S. for millions of users. Regards, -- Marco Calistri http://mcalistri.blogspot.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 4/14/2011 12:22 PM, Marco Calistri wrote:
On Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 11:34:25 (-0300 UTC) j debert wrote:
On 04/12/2011 03:34 PM, Insomniac wrote:
Philips webcams used to work fantastically in SuSE, all the way up to 10.3 IIRR. For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people.
The original pwc module maintainer eventually quit out of frustration with the kernel maintainers. This was covered on Slashdot at the time and the "discussion" was furious. It very much seemed as if the maintainer was being singled out by the kernel people and intentionally and specifically blocked from including his modules. The module's maintenance was taken up by another developer who stopped maintaining it not long after.
The original kernel module was in two parts, one of which was a proprietary binary which provided the larger format compression routines. The maintainer could not provide source until the NDA with Phillips expired, which occurred about a year after he quit. It's unfortunate the original maintainer quit: The original modules worked the best. They worked well up to OpenSuSE 10.3 but sometime before end-of-life, something changed enough to break the modules. Since then, nothing for these webcams has worked well, if at all.
jd My sincere compliments to this unaceptable group of devs which are willing "to close an open software".
The result is that Microsoft will continue to be present massively as the "de facto" O.S. for millions of users.
Regards,
How about if you have to piss on someone blame the manufacturer who insisted on supplying a binary-only black mystery box? You can't fault anyone else for being uninterested in wasting their time and talents one such a dead end instead of working on more rewarding and forward looking products and projects. You also can't fault anyone for having the deeper understanding that something is not always better than nothing. Having hardware that can't _possibly_ be made to work reliably and stable because the quality, compatibility, and behavior of some of the code, much less kernel level code that can affect the entire system, can't be ensured or audited or even properly debugged, is all in all far worse for linux and all linux users than having that hardware simply be not available at all. Yes, it's true you don't always have a simple choice to use other hardware. Laptops come with whatever they come with and if you need a particular laptop for other reasons, and the built-in webcam or sd card reader don't work, well that's just the breaks. It's just one more of the many factors that must be weighed when purchasing. Feel free to write a good driver that's all visible forward maintainable source if it matters so much to you. Or dig in and pursue the trails left behind from the last time it was being worked on. Lookup anyone who ever signed the NDA and had the source, verify the expiration theory that it's really ok for them to publicize the source now, and try to find one of them to give it to you, then update it to the current kernel and figure out what was wrong with it before other than having a binary-only component and address that. Then when you get tired of that, or if you don't even start, we can all insult you for it. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 04/14/2011 01:14 PM, Brian K. White pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
On 4/14/2011 12:22 PM, Marco Calistri wrote:
On Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 11:34:25 (-0300 UTC) j debert wrote:
On 04/12/2011 03:34 PM, Insomniac wrote:
Philips webcams used to work fantastically in SuSE, all the way up to 10.3 IIRR. For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people.
The original pwc module maintainer eventually quit out of frustration with the kernel maintainers. This was covered on Slashdot at the time and the "discussion" was furious. It very much seemed as if the maintainer was being singled out by the kernel people and intentionally and specifically blocked from including his modules. The module's maintenance was taken up by another developer who stopped maintaining it not long after.
The original kernel module was in two parts, one of which was a proprietary binary which provided the larger format compression routines. The maintainer could not provide source until the NDA with Phillips expired, which occurred about a year after he quit. It's unfortunate the original maintainer quit: The original modules worked the best. They worked well up to OpenSuSE 10.3 but sometime before end-of-life, something changed enough to break the modules. Since then, nothing for these webcams has worked well, if at all.
jd My sincere compliments to this unaceptable group of devs which are willing "to close an open software".
The result is that Microsoft will continue to be present massively as the "de facto" O.S. for millions of users.
Regards,
How about if you have to piss on someone blame the manufacturer who insisted on supplying a binary-only black mystery box? You can't fault anyone else for being uninterested in wasting their time and talents one such a dead end instead of working on more rewarding and forward looking products and projects.
You also can't fault anyone for having the deeper understanding that something is not always better than nothing. Having hardware that can't _possibly_ be made to work reliably and stable because the quality, compatibility, and behavior of some of the code, much less kernel level code that can affect the entire system, can't be ensured or audited or even properly debugged, is all in all far worse for linux and all linux users than having that hardware simply be not available at all.
Yes, it's true you don't always have a simple choice to use other hardware. Laptops come with whatever they come with and if you need a particular laptop for other reasons, and the built-in webcam or sd card reader don't work, well that's just the breaks. It's just one more of the many factors that must be weighed when purchasing.
Feel free to write a good driver that's all visible forward maintainable source if it matters so much to you.
Or dig in and pursue the trails left behind from the last time it was being worked on. Lookup anyone who ever signed the NDA and had the source, verify the expiration theory that it's really ok for them to publicize the source now, and try to find one of them to give it to you, then update it to the current kernel and figure out what was wrong with it before other than having a binary-only component and address that.
Then when you get tired of that, or if you don't even start, we can all insult you for it.
Bravo, +1 -- Ken Schneider SuSe since Version 5.2, June 1998 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 14:26:56 (-0300 UTC) Ken Schneider - openSUSE wrote:
On 04/14/2011 01:14 PM, Brian K. White pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
On 4/14/2011 12:22 PM, Marco Calistri wrote:
On Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 11:34:25 (-0300 UTC) j debert wrote:
On 04/12/2011 03:34 PM, Insomniac wrote:
Philips webcams used to work fantastically in SuSE, all the way up to 10.3 IIRR. For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people.
The original pwc module maintainer eventually quit out of frustration with the kernel maintainers. This was covered on Slashdot at the time and the "discussion" was furious. It very much seemed as if the maintainer was being singled out by the kernel people and intentionally and specifically blocked from including his modules. The module's maintenance was taken up by another developer who stopped maintaining it not long after.
The original kernel module was in two parts, one of which was a proprietary binary which provided the larger format compression routines. The maintainer could not provide source until the NDA with Phillips expired, which occurred about a year after he quit. It's unfortunate the original maintainer quit: The original modules worked the best. They worked well up to OpenSuSE 10.3 but sometime before end-of-life, something changed enough to break the modules. Since then, nothing for these webcams has worked well, if at all.
jd My sincere compliments to this unaceptable group of devs which are willing "to close an open software".
The result is that Microsoft will continue to be present massively as the "de facto" O.S. for millions of users.
Regards,
How about if you have to piss on someone blame the manufacturer who insisted on supplying a binary-only black mystery box? You can't fault anyone else for being uninterested in wasting their time and talents one such a dead end instead of working on more rewarding and forward looking products and projects.
You also can't fault anyone for having the deeper understanding that something is not always better than nothing. Having hardware that can't _possibly_ be made to work reliably and stable because the quality, compatibility, and behavior of some of the code, much less kernel level code that can affect the entire system, can't be ensured or audited or even properly debugged, is all in all far worse for linux and all linux users than having that hardware simply be not available at all.
Yes, it's true you don't always have a simple choice to use other hardware. Laptops come with whatever they come with and if you need a particular laptop for other reasons, and the built-in webcam or sd card reader don't work, well that's just the breaks. It's just one more of the many factors that must be weighed when purchasing.
Feel free to write a good driver that's all visible forward maintainable source if it matters so much to you.
Or dig in and pursue the trails left behind from the last time it was being worked on. Lookup anyone who ever signed the NDA and had the source, verify the expiration theory that it's really ok for them to publicize the source now, and try to find one of them to give it to you, then update it to the current kernel and figure out what was wrong with it before other than having a binary-only component and address that.
Then when you get tired of that, or if you don't even start, we can all insult you for it.
Bravo, +1
I wont blame nor piss on nobody, I simply expressed my opinion that of course could be accepted or not; be right or wrong. I think expressing proper opinions is permitted as we should live in a democratic world. My first Linux installation was a Red Hat 5.1 and always I loved this free OS and admired people that live behind it providing it grows day after day. I am a Linux user since many years; I'm not a dev, so perhaps I have a very limited vision of the core of problem. I simply have been disappointedto hear that the effort of some maintainers committed in building Linux drivers for, as you have classified "black mystery box", was suddenly unsupported by other group of people due some legal, technical, resource or whatsoever they claimed as reason. At the end I notice something that I classify as serious regress since until openSUSE 10.3 apparently there was no problems in using this modules/drivers. Cheers, -- Marco Calistri http://mcalistri.blogspot.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday, April 14, 2011 12:26 Ken Schneider - openSUSE wrote:
On 04/14/2011 01:14 PM, Brian K. White pecked at the keyboard and wrote:
On 4/14/2011 12:22 PM, Marco Calistri wrote:
On Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 11:34:25 (-0300 UTC) j debert wrote:
On 04/12/2011 03:34 PM, Insomniac wrote:
Philips webcams used to work fantastically in SuSE, all the way up to 10.3 IIRR. For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people.
The original pwc module maintainer eventually quit out of frustration with the kernel maintainers. This was covered on Slashdot at the time and the "discussion" was furious. It very much seemed as if the maintainer was being singled out by the kernel people and intentionally and specifically blocked from including his modules. The module's maintenance was taken up by another developer who stopped maintaining it not long after.
The original kernel module was in two parts, one of which was a proprietary binary which provided the larger format compression routines. The maintainer could not provide source until the NDA with Phillips expired, which occurred about a year after he quit. It's unfortunate the original maintainer quit: The original modules worked the best. They worked well up to OpenSuSE 10.3 but sometime before end-of-life, something changed enough to break the modules. Since then, nothing for these webcams has worked well, if at all.
jd
My sincere compliments to this unaceptable group of devs which are willing "to close an open software".
The result is that Microsoft will continue to be present massively as the "de facto" O.S. for millions of users.
Regards,
How about
<snip whiny rage output>
Bravo, +1
Get a room you two. -- "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." -Isaac Asimov -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thursday, April 14, 2011 12:14 Brian K. White wrote:
On 4/14/2011 12:22 PM, Marco Calistri wrote:
On Thu 14 Apr 2011 at 11:34:25 (-0300 UTC) j debert wrote:
On 04/12/2011 03:34 PM, Insomniac wrote:
Philips webcams used to work fantastically in SuSE, all the way up to 10.3
IIRR. For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people.
The original pwc module maintainer eventually quit out of frustration with the kernel maintainers. This was covered on Slashdot at the time and the "discussion" was furious. It very much seemed as if the maintainer was being singled out by the kernel people and intentionally and specifically blocked from including his modules. The module's maintenance was taken up by another developer who stopped maintaining it not long after.
The original kernel module was in two parts, one of which was a proprietary binary which provided the larger format compression routines. The maintainer could not provide source until the NDA with Phillips expired, which occurred about a year after he quit. It's unfortunate the original maintainer quit: The original modules worked the best. They worked well up to OpenSuSE 10.3 but sometime before end-of-life, something changed enough to break the modules. Since then, nothing for these webcams has worked well, if at all.
jd
My sincere compliments to this unaceptable group of devs which are willing "to close an open software".
The result is that Microsoft will continue to be present massively as the "de facto" O.S. for millions of users.
Regards,
How about if you have to piss on someone blame the manufacturer who insisted on supplying a binary-only black mystery box?
Many people *did*. Who are you to ASSume no one did?
You can't fault anyone else for being uninterested in wasting their time and talents one such a dead end instead of working on more rewarding and forward looking products and projects.
funny how that "dead end" worked for a number of years until some morons at the kernel level decided to show that they're better than everyone else and screw over the guy who *DID* "waste his time" getting a *LOT* of Philips webcams working.
You also can't fault anyone for having the deeper understanding that something is not always better than nothing.
Yes, I can.
Having hardware that can't _possibly_ be made to work reliably and stable because the quality,
See two paragraphs above. It all 'worked' just fine, better, as a matter of fact, than most garbage I've seen nowadays. I've got a friend who refuses to go to Linux, and has spent way too much money on nice equipment, including things like new webcams. The pictures he sends me, taken with whatever model he's using at the time, have all sucked, compared to my old Philips...which worked wonderfully, to remind you.
Yes, it's true you don't always have a simple choice to use other hardware.
So, you finally came down off that high, white horse to the level of us peons. Thanks for nothing, your hypocrisy is duly noted.
Feel free to write a good driver that's all visible forward maintainable source if it matters so much to you.
IT WAS ALREADY DONE! You have a short-term memory problem, right?
Then when you get tired of that, or if you don't even start, we can all insult you for it.
Or, we can all let you know what an asshat you are for trying to bully your POV onto anyone who doesn't see things in the same light as yourself. What a dick. I bet you're a real blast at parties too...the one everyone likes to tell to FOAD after you've been there 10 minutes...or less. How's that for an 'insult' to YOU, you pin-headed minge. -- "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." -Isaac Asimov -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:22:48 -0300, Marco Calistri
My sincere compliments to this unaceptable group of devs which are willing "to close an open software".
You don't know what happened and are acting on hearsay only so I would be very careful in blaming anyone.
The result is that Microsoft will continue to be present massively as the "de facto" O.S. for millions of users.
Blame the manufacturers of the camera for using a chip that needs code that's only provided as a binary blob instead of documenting all that is needed to support it. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
From the developer's discussions about the matter, it was understood
There were two modules: the open pwc module that interacted with the camera and the closed pwcx module that provided the compression routines required for the large format features. The usb-snd module maintained by someone else was used for the microphone. Apparently mention that the binary module was for the compression routines was missed. The binary, closed-source module was not needed to make the camera work. And as mentioned, the NDA was set to expire. that he would then be free to make the pwcx module open-sourced with Phillips blessing. Instead, the compression routines wound up being reverse-engineered and integrated into a single pwc module. Had the kernel usb maintainer not singled his modules out for apparently "special treatment" and the maintainer quit out of sheer frustration, he would have eventually had both modules open-sourced and, once all the kernel people stopped changing the rules every few minutes, he could have met their requirements and would likely still be hard at work maintaining the modules. Microsoft drives hardware development to their own advantage, to ensure that no one else can compete on "their" hardware. Hardware makers are often strong-armed by Microsoft into submission in order to find a market for their products. It's ridiculous to condemn the end user. If you must blame anyone, blame microsoft's anti-competitive and monopolistic business model. Look up "+nemosoft +pwc +phillips", sans quotes, on Yahoo for more about the pwc and pwcx modules. But note that the web page @ smcc.demon.nl for the original modules has gone 404. Or try Google if you don't mind wading through irrelevant results. jd -- If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think they'll hate you -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:15:12 -0700, j debert
Had the kernel usb maintainer not singled his modules out for apparently "special treatment" and the maintainer quit out of sheer frustration,
I'll have to read the discussion before I accept a statement about special treatment.
It's ridiculous to condemn the end user. If you must blame anyone, blame microsoft's anti-competitive and monopolistic business model.
Wellcome to capitalism 101. It's the nearly natural behaviour for a manufacturer to own as much of the market as he can. And sure as hell can I generally blame users for buying hardware before checking the state of support in a given OS. The problem with multimedia is that it's a minefield of patents and intelectual properties. That's why it's sometimes hard or impossible for manufacturers to fully document their stuff as often they buy 3rd party ip for which they have no rights to open it up. Quoted from the report about a panel discussion at the linux foundation collaboration summit on lwn.net: Hohndel described the situation as a "rock and a hard place". When a vendor buys IP blocks, the third parties they purchase them from often have "strange ideas of GPL compliance". There are lots of constraints that go into building SoCs, he said, and vendors have to deal with the real world, not the one they wish they lived in. He noted that Intel had done a lot of work to get acceptable drivers for PowerVR-based graphics devices into the kernel.
Look up "+nemosoft +pwc +phillips", sans quotes, on Yahoo for more about the pwc and pwcx modules.
I'll do the lookup.
But note that the web page @smcc.demon.nl for the original modules has gone 404.
Well, there's always the wayback machine :-) Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
* Philipp Thomas (Philipp.Thomas2@gmx.net) [20110415 21:02]:
But note that the web page @smcc.demon.nl for the original modules has gone 404.
Well, there's always the wayback machine :-)
And indeed it helped: http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090615054035/http://www.smcc.demon.nl/web... Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
* Insomniac (insomniac@toast2.net) [20110413 00:39]:
For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people.
It's the kernel folks, more precisely Greg Kroah-Hartman that removed the hook from the pwc driver that was needed to use the binary-only decompressor module pwcx. PWC runs without the decompressor but has limits in quality and resolution. And removing the hook is more good than bad because remember: kernel drivers are free to do everything they want. And the author could possibly have found a way to run the decompressor in user space which would have solved the problem with the kernel folks. Instead he choose to act more like a diva and throw the towel i.e. remove pwc from the kernel sources and quit maintaining it.
So don't blame old hardware...that's a throwback, garbage excuse to the days of Windows - every version of it.
The blame is still on companies that try to differentiate themselves by hiding the details of their hardware or that buy 3rd party ip without the rights to open-source them. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On 4/18/2011 8:27 AM, Philipp Thomas wrote:
* Insomniac (insomniac@toast2.net) [20110413 00:39]:
For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people.
It's the kernel folks, more precisely Greg Kroah-Hartman that removed the hook from the pwc driver that was needed to use the binary-only decompressor module pwcx. PWC runs without the decompressor but has limits in quality and resolution.
And removing the hook is more good than bad because remember: kernel drivers are free to do everything they want.
And the author could possibly have found a way to run the decompressor in user space which would have solved the problem with the kernel folks. Instead he choose to act more like a diva and throw the towel i.e. remove pwc from the kernel sources and quit maintaining it.
So don't blame old hardware...that's a throwback, garbage excuse to the days of Windows - every version of it.
The blame is still on companies that try to differentiate themselves by hiding the details of their hardware or that buy 3rd party ip without the rights to open-source them.
Philipp
I know, veering off topic, the damned GMA500 chip in my Vaio-P wasted so much of my time... Even on Windows! I wanted that tiny form factor but god what a pain in the balls it was getting a working video driver, even if you didn't care about the hardware accelleration it was still tricky just to get plain-old-plain-old native text resolution and basic X. Back on topic, I often curse this machine, and when I do, I curse Sony, Intel and PowerVR, not the few people that managed to hack and re-package the binary driver to support newer kernels and other machines a few times but rarely very well and rarely up to date and rarely (never?) for suse and not recently. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Monday, April 18, 2011 13:11 Brian K. White wrote:
On 4/18/2011 8:27 AM, Philipp Thomas wrote:
* Insomniac (insomniac@toast2.net) [20110413 00:39]:
For some odd reason the kernel people or the suse people or whomever it was, decided to remove the part that made them work. You know, the 'fix what ain't broke' people.
It's the kernel folks, more precisely Greg Kroah-Hartman that removed the hook from the pwc driver that was needed to use the binary-only decompressor module pwcx. PWC runs without the decompressor but has limits in quality and resolution.
And removing the hook is more good than bad because remember: kernel drivers are free to do everything they want.
And the author could possibly have found a way to run the decompressor in user space which would have solved the problem with the kernel folks. Instead he choose to act more like a diva and throw the towel i.e. remove pwc from the kernel sources and quit maintaining it.
So don't blame old hardware...that's a throwback, garbage excuse to the days
of Windows - every version of it.
The blame is still on companies that try to differentiate themselves by hiding the details of their hardware or that buy 3rd party ip without the rights to open-source them.
Philipp
I know, veering off topic, the damned GMA500 chip in my Vaio-P wasted so much of my time... Even on Windows! I wanted that tiny form factor but god what a pain in the balls it was getting a working video driver, even if you didn't care about the hardware accelleration it was still tricky just to get plain-old-plain-old native text resolution and basic X.
Back on topic, I often curse this machine, and when I do, I curse Sony, Intel and PowerVR, not the few people that managed to hack and re-package the binary driver to support newer kernels and other machines a few times but rarely very well and rarely up to date and rarely (never?) for suse and not recently.
When I got this old Philips 740 webcam years ago, it naturally came with the
M$ installation CD. At that time I was still dual-booting. Once I installed the
software on the M$ side, I tried to use it (the webcam)...it was garbage. The
picture sucked, the app that I can barely remember didn't work at all to let me
take snapshots and webchat with others. I was garbage.
On the Linux side, once I did all the PWC stuff, the camera was *THE* finest
picture ever. Really, really clear and when used with Camstream, it worked
beautifully. It put to shame the crap Philips sent for the M$ side.
Now, I've got this garbage Logitech 3000 and the UVC thing garbled into the
kernel(?) or wherever it is now and the picture is crap. Fuzzy, blurry and
pretty much useless (useless enough that I simply don't use it anymore...what a
waste).
I'll say it again...the kernel people fixed what wasn't broke and took away
one of the far too few things that Linux is getting working well. Two steps
forward when it worked, three steps back when they didn't want it in the kernel.
Now a bunch of people have hardware that worked wonderfully, sitting on their
desktops gathering dust and people acting exactly the same as M$ users did and
still do by telling anyone who complains about it to 'get new
On Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:37:43 -0500, Insomniac
I'll say it again...the kernel people fixed what wasn't broke
It was broken! It loaded a binary only module into the kernel.
and took away one of the far too few things that Linux is getting working well.
Hadn't the author in part behaved like a sulking child he could have made the driver an external, out of tree driver just like ati and nvidia do with their binary-only driver. Philipp -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (10)
-
Brandon Philips -
Brian K. White -
C -
Harrie Baken -
Insomniac -
j debert -
Ken Schneider - openSUSE -
Marco Calistri -
Philipp Thomas -
Philipp Thomas