Logitech QuickCam Messenger on Linux using Skype

9. November 2008, by Alex

Update: Ubuntu 9.04 Users klick here…

I am surprised how many people visit my site because their looking for a solution to get a Logitech QuickCam Messenger (046d:08f0) running on Linux using Skype

Since my last post seems to be a bit buggy for newer kernels, I updated my system to Debian (Lenny, 2.6.26-1-686) and gave it try.

All you need before we start:

apt-get install libgstreamer0.10-dev pkg-config subversion linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential

Plug in your webcam.
Remove the old quickcam_messenger module:

rmmod quickcam_messenger

To make sure it is not going to be loaded again we add

blacklist quickcam_messenger

at the end of /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Download the new qcmessener module:

wget http://home.mag.cx/messenger/source/qc-usb-messenger-1.8.tar.gz
tar xzvf qc-usb-messenger-1.8.tar.gz

Now if you are running kernel 2.6.26 or newer , it is necessary to patch some files.

wget http://bugs.gentoo.org/attachment.cgi?id=167504 -O patch.txt
patch -p0 < patch.txt

Continue installing:

cd qc-usb-messenger-1.8
make
make install
insmod ./qcmessenger.ko

Remember to be root when running make install

Give it a test:

qcset /dev/video0 compat=dblbuf
gst-launch-0.10 v4lsrc device=/dev/video0 ! ffmpegcolorspace ! ximagesink

If every thing works go on and install Gstfakevideo:

svn checkout http://gstfakevideo.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ gstfakevideo
cd gstfakevideo
make
make install

Create a new file called skype.sh and add these lines:

#!/bin/sh
gstfakevideo v4lsrc device=/dev/video1 ! ffmpegcolorspace

And run:

chmod +x skype.sh

Now reload the module

rmmod qcmessenger
modprobe qcmessenger compatible=6 video_nr=1

Create a new file /etc/modprobe.d/qcmessenger and add:

options qcmessenger compatible=6 video_nr=1

This makes sure, that your webcam will always be /dev/video1 and uses “dblbuf”.

Finally fire up Skype by running skype.sh. That’s it!

Please leave a comment if you got some problems or want to give me feedback.

Update:
Here is a test image.

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