Anne Kowalski

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Creative Notebook Pro Webcam Works in Ubuntu

I can finally do MSN Live webcam chats in Ubuntu.  Last time I tried using my Creative Live! Cam Notebook Pro with Linux (about seven months ago) it was a total disaster.  I couldn’t get it to work at all...it was one of the reasons I stopped using Ubuntu for a while.

All it required this time was plugging it in - the green LED light lit and it was ready to go.  I like using it in Ubuntu because I don’t have to go through the process of starting the Creative driver program like in Windows XP.  Just plug it in and use it.

Notes:

• I’m using Kopete 0.12.4 as my chat client.  I don’t believe Pidgin (formerly GAIM) offers webcam support, and no matter what I did aMSN still gave me an error message about my firewall/router settings.


• I’ve only tested so far with the other user using the MSN Live client.


• Kopete is seems a bit sluggish when doing video chats.  This doesn’t seem to be a problem when testing the webcam in XawTV, or configuring it within Kopete.  Just when using it within a conversation.