Okay, cracked it!
But it was a fight. Main problem is that as they come, the drivers won't actually compile, for reasons set out here:-
http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-d.../msg09422.html
So this is what you actually have to do. First open a terminal and then...
Make sure you have the header files for building the UVC module:-
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
Make sure you have the tools you need:-
sudo apt-get install build-essential libncurses5-dev
Download the driver tarball to your desktop. At time of writing the current set of drivers may be found at:-
http://linuxtv.org/hg/~pinchartl/uvcvideo/shortlog/tip
Select the type of archive, zip, gz or bz2 from the left pane, (gz recommended).
The following instructions assume you download the gz file located at:-
http://linuxtv.org/hg/~pinchartl/uvcvideo/archive/tip.tar.gz
At time of writing this file is called:-
uvcvideo-c57f47cfb0e8.tar.gz but it is being updated all the time
so its name may have changed! This means you may need to replace the file name I used with the new name, in the instructions below!
I'm also assuming it will be downloaded (or moved) to your desktop located at:-
~/Desktop.
Then open a terminal and do these commands:-
cd ~/Desktop
sudo tar -xvzf uvcvideo-c57f47cfb0e8.tar.gz
cd ~/Desktop/uvcvideo-c57f47cfb0e8
Now before you attempt to compile anything you need to disable the faulty firedtv driver. discussed earlier:-
gedit ~/Desktop/uvcvideo-c57f47cfb0e8/v4l/.config
Find the first line that refers to FIREDTV and change the '
=m' to '
=n'. I.e change:-
CONFIG_DVB_FIREDTV=m
to
CONFIG_DVB_FIREDTV=n
then save the file.
If you want to customise which drivers to compile, run:
make menuconfig
If you're unsure about the options that appear, just accept the defaults and exit by pressing
ESC twice. That's what I did and it seemed to work OK!
Now compile the drivers:-
make
Install the compiled drivers to the appropriate module directories:-
sudo make install
followed by
sudo depmod -a
Now, unfortunately the cam is a USB device that you cannot actually unplug. So you will need to reboot your machine:-
sudo reboot
When your machine restarts, open a terminal & type:-
dmesg | grep video
it should return something like the following:-
[ 0.633360] pci 0000:01:00.0: Boot video device
[ 8.207929] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
[ 8.244769] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device BisonCam, NB Pro (5986:0241)
[ 8.248362] usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
If dmesg is OK then video should now be available in Skype (if you have installed it), by opening Skype, logging in and selecting
Options|Video from the Skype menu
You should also be able to see it from VLC (if you have installed it) by selecting VLC's
Media|
Open Capture Device menu item. Select
Video For Linux 2 from the picklist and click the
Play button at the bottom of the dialog.
Final comment. Compiling the driver was a long winded process and it is disappointing that the driver-set was flawed. However, once it is done, the performance is pretty good (for a 1.3MP built-in camera). And it seems very stable. Hopefully, this will all be compiled into a later Linux kernel - so we'll never have to do it again!
Good luck & best wishes, G.