System is Mandrake 9.0, Xfree 4.2, with ATI All In Wonder (r128) AGP card. Kernel is 2.4.19 (stock mandrake 2.4.19-16mdk version) Out of the box, the video card works correctly with xawtv and others. However it appears to be using some extension of the Xserver rather than the device files /dev/video0 etc. I have plugged in a USB webcam, and Mandrake creates a device /dev/video0 linked to /dev/v4l/video0, and this works correctly, so I know the device files work correctly. I am trying to get unattended video capture working, using vcr (and km, and others), but all of these seem to fall at the hurdle of accessing the v4l device file. I have manually created the correct video device files (mknod, MAKEDEV etc at char device maj81 min0, all to no avail), and the card continues to work without accessing the device files. Is this standard behaviour for these type of ATI cards? I have RTFMed/Googled/Dejad till my fingers bleed, but have not found any useful advice. It does appear, from several comments, that the ATI workings are a bit strange, so maybe I would be better off getting a bttv card and forgetting about this one! Am I missing something in the setup of v4l here? Is there something I need to change in the setup of X to force the card to use the device files for video capture? I have been using Linux for several years now, and feel I have progressed well beyond the numpty stage now, and am comfortable with kernel building and manual editing of config files, but this one has me stumped at the moment! Any advice or pointers will be gratefully accepted! Thanks Mike Holden
