In an endeavour to install a coffee cam at work, we're trying to get an ATI Wonder VE (via PCI bus) do screen grabs from the composite video input. We're running Redhat 6.1. This could be upgraded to 6.2 but 7 is out of the question currently. Ideally, I'd just like to leave it at 6.1 since there's really no other reason, currently, to upgrade it. Loading the drivers shipped with the distribution by hand: insmod videodev insmod i2c insmod bttv card=10 insmod tuner debug=1 type=2 results in the following being dumped into the /var/log/messages file: Feb 14 15:04:30 linux3 kernel: Linux video capture interface: v1.00 Feb 14 15:04:40 linux3 kernel: i2c: initialized Feb 14 15:04:51 linux3 kernel: bttv0: Brooktree Bt878 (rev 2) bus: 0, devfn: 72, irq: 12, memory: 0xcf800000. Feb 14 15:04:51 linux3 kernel: PCI: Enabling bus mastering for device 00:48 Feb 14 15:04:51 linux3 kernel: bttv: 1 Bt8xx card(s) found. Feb 14 15:04:51 linux3 kernel: bttv0: NO fader chip: TEA6300 Feb 14 15:04:51 linux3 kernel: bttv0: model: BT878(Hauppauge new) Feb 14 15:04:57 linux3 kernel: tuner: type is 2 (Philips NTSC) The card and tuner type were gleaned from information around the web on this card. When I start xawtv, I get: This is xawtv-3.31, running on Linux/i686 (2.2.12-20smp) visual: id=0x22 class=4 (TrueColor), depth=24 x11: remote display (overlay disabled) v4l: bttv version 0.5.35 v4l: prehistoric bttv version found, please try to upgrade the driver before mailing bug reports Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-ledfixed-medium-r-semicondensed--39-*" to type FontStruct ioctl: VIDIOCMCAPTURE(0,fmt=0,size=0x0): Invalid argument v4l: Huh? setformat: found queued buffers (1 0) ioctl: VIDIOCSYNC(0): Invalid argument ... and a typical snowy picture from a tuner without an antenna. I don't have a cable or antenna attached (since I don't care about that anyhow). On the Options dialog, I changed the Video Source to Composite1. I got a blue screen. From tidbits I've picked up somewhere on the web, this could mean I don't have a video signal. Since the camera isn't connected, it might be dead on! So, I go and put the camera on (which has been tested plugging into a video in on a TV ... it works fine). Nothing. Still a blue screen. The other possibly relevant options on the xawtv are: TV Norm: PAL Frequency table: europe-west Audio: > (don't care about audio anyhow) Capture: grabdisplay Ideally, I want to use webcam to take snaps and put them on a website. This part has been configured and seems to be working itself. I'm just not getting an image. So, figuring that the warning about the "prehistoric bttv version" was a *big* clue, I decided to try and upgrade i2c and bttv to the latest greatest versions. i2c was a snap since I found an RPM for Redhat 6.1 (SMP) on the i2c home page. So I installed that: rpm -i kernel-i2c-2.5.1smp-1rh61.i386.rpm I then went and moved the /usr/src/linux/include/linux/i2c.h out of the way so the one in /usr/local/include/linux would be used instead. I thin snarfed the bttv 0.7.56 tarball. Since it needs some kernel configuration information, I went into /usr/src/linux and copied the configuration configs/kerenel-2.2.12-i686-smp.config into .config and then did a make dep to force dependencies to be build. Running make in the bttv directory indeed builds the driver but when I install it and try to load it, I get a version mismatch between the kernel. I'm running a vanilla Redhat 6.1 SMP kernel with uname -r reporting: 2.2.12-20smp. I fiddled with this a bit but could never seem to get this working right. I managed to get the kernel version problem sidestepped but then depmod -a was reporting alot of unresolved symbols. I figured I'd try and get the drivers integrated into the kernel source tree and rebuild the kernel. i2c, again, was a snap since there's a perl script that makes a patch and does the dirty work. bttv, however, has a note in the README file saying, for 2.2 kernels, just copy the files in and modify the Makefile by hand. Precisely how to modify the Makefile however, a useful tidbit of information indeed, was absent. I did a guess and it failed miserably. A web search for somebody who did it and posted the details also came up empty. So I'm stuck. There is little information out there that I can find about getting a non-Redhat 7 system working. I'd prefer not to have to compile the kernel (we're trying to keep vanilla distribution installs for software production and support reasons). I got really close with bttv being the derailing part due to the kernel version mismatch and/or unresolved symbol issues. Does anyone know if this is hopeless so I can stop wasting my time? The ATI Wonder VE was chosen since it appeared to be supported, was cheap, and was readily available in the local stores. If there is a success path without upgrading i2c and bttv, even better. I have heard of people getting the tuner to work but not the composite input. Does anyone have this configuration working? Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I'm reasonably proficient with Linux kernel recompilation and have hacked around Linux for quite a few years now. Regards, Arthur -- Arthur Castonguay mailto:arthurc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Staff Scientist http://www.cadabradesign.com Cadabra Design Automation - My opinions are mine, not my employers -
