LAN + Networks

Managed to set up the new firewall computer to work with the Kensington USB Webcam using the se401 kernel module. New comp had a different USB type than the previous Intel motherboard, so new kernel time! (didn't realize that until an hour into debugging why webcam no longer output pictures :-/

Just in case I forget how to compile kernels:

# cd /usr/src/linux
# make menuconfig
[choose relevant options]
# make
# make modules_install
# mount /boot
# cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-2.6.18-gentoo-r6-2007-07-23
                             (substitute kernel version and date as appropriate)

Ok so we now have a new kernel in place - just need to add it to the Grub boot menu and reboot:

# nano /boot/grub/grub.conf
# reboot

and viola! USB camera back in action.

TEST:

# vidcat -d /dev/video0 -o tempout.jpg

should report no errors and produce viewable tempout.jpg image, like this:

[lt]div class="image_block"[gt][lt]img src="http://blog.torbonium.com/media/blogs/torbonium/tempout3.jpg" alt="Kitchen Cam first image" title="Kitchen Cam first image" width="320" height="240" /[gt][lt]div class="image_legend"[gt]Kitchen Cam first image[lt]/div[gt][lt]/div[gt]

actually this line worked better in the end:

# vidcat -q 50 -d /dev/v4l/video0 -o tempout.jpg -i tv -s 400x300

next step - have it regularly send pictures to the co-lo webserver.