eee pc with webcam : 701SD

[julianb]

I like tinycore because it's quick. On the other hand, I like the tendency for things to "just work" in Ubuntu.

If I can make tinycorelinux work on my new eee pc 701sd including making the web cam easy to use, then it's tinycorelinux that I want to use.

so my first question is, do you know if it's worth trying?

here's what would make me say "the software supports this hardware as well as I want":

1) able to record video, save it to the SSD, and retrieve it later, and upload it to facebook/youtube.
2) able to take a photo.
3) able to use Ekiga or Skype for low resolution video+audio chat

so my request is,
if you know what software will make the above capabilities work, please tell me. (if you know some of what's required, please tell me.) I have never used ndiswrapper but if that's needed, i'd appreciate any help understanding how to use it.

[curaga]

The drivers for all supported webcams are in the v4l-dvb-2.6.29.1-tinycore.tczm extension. Loading it should turn your webcam on, if it is a supported one.

Video can be recorded just with the standard unix tools, ie "cat /dev/video0 > my_vid.mpeg" and ctrl-C to stop recording. Alternatively Mplayer can be used.

I believe you need an app for taking a pic, I'm not sure if one is yet packaged for TC.

For Skype, it should be enough to grab the above extension and one of the sound extensions (alsa or oss).

[julianb]

thanks.

on my 701sd, i'm encountering a problem i didnt encounter on the 900a :

iwconfig claims that the device ath0 does not exist (it also does not find any device named ath* or wlan*

maybe i'm missing the correct drivers for realtek wireless lan card, which (i read online) is what this pc contains.

i have not checked output of the command lspci.

wicd is buggy in that if I install it the GUI contains nothing but the squares (hmm, maybe I need to install some fonts or something?)

am typing this from the 701sd booted to windows. Windows performs very poorly on this hardware.

[julianb]

I attempted to use ndiswrapper to install the Windows driver for the rtl8187se wireless NIC. The specific driver I used was the one you can find in a Google search for rtl8187se driver; it was hosted by informer.com

After installing the driver, i can do
ndiswrapper -l

and it returns
[driver name]: driver installed
and on the same line it says something about "no device".

I could download the tarball of the driver hosted by Google Code, which can be found by searching for rtl8187se driver within Google Code's subdomain....
but I'm not sure it'd work.

I ask because I don't really want to set the machine up with Puppylinux or Ubuntu, which both seem to support the rtl8187se. I like Tinycorelinux better.

[Juanito]

I ask because I don't really want to set the machine up with Puppylinux or Ubuntu, which both seem to support the rtl8187se. I like Tinycorelinux better.

You could copy the windows driver used by ndiswrapper from puppy/ubuntu, no?

[julianb]

I'm pretty sure Ubuntu and Puppy are using the open source driver that can be found on google code.

I downloaded and un-tarred the driver. It comes with a script that uses make, to compile the driver.
the error messages I get are

Code: [Select]

*** No rule to make target 'modules'. Stop.
*** [modules] Error 2
cp: cannot stat Module.symvers': no such file or directory

Oh, am i supposed to also have the whole tinycore kernel source? I'm confused

[Juanito]

If you search the forum, there are several threads on compiling wifi modules.

You might be able to compile the module using the linux-headers-2.6.29.1-tinycore extension and if this doesn't work, you could try with the full kernel source.

[julianb]

success!!! I compiled the driver and it is useable.

used root shell.

Made sure compiletc was installed, as well as bash and perl5. had linux-headers-2.6.29.1-tinycore installed. also had wireless_tools, and wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod and wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore.

also had to run the wlan0up script that was included as part of the driver tarball.

after all that, success when running:
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid MYROUTER key MYKEY
sudo udhcpc -i wlan0

yes!

[Juanito]

..wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod and wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore.

Great - you don't need both of these, just one or the other, I believe.

[julianb]

..wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod and wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore.

Here's what I've seen with these so far:

If you install wireless_tools, wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore is installed by default.

I tried using wireless_tools with wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod and wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore, it worked. I tried using wireless_tools with wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore_mod but not wireless-2.6.29.1-tinycore and it did not work.

(Machine i tried that on was eee pc 901 with atheros wireless-network-card.)

[julianb]

update: wireless works. webcam does not.

if anyone needs a tczm extension for the realtek rtl8187 driver (assuming the packages already available don't work for you, like they didn't work for me) then contact me and I'll submit mine for the repository. I need to change it slightly before it'll work out-of-the-box.

I think I'll see if I can create a tczm extension for the camera as well, but the problem i'm up against at the moment is I don't know what the camera brand or model is, which makes it hard to look for a driver.

[jur]

I installed the standard webcam extension (forget its name now) and my 1000he webcam works, tested with Skype.

[sam0010]

Hi Julianb.   Please put the wifi driver for eee pc 701sd on the repository.  I am currently trying to get TC on my eee pc 701 4g.  When its working I will get my eee pc 701sd working with TC. Thanks.

[julianb]

merry christmas -- i submitted my extension to the repository, hopefully it will be posted soon.

[alanbcohen]

Thanks Julianb (and great suggestion Sam0010),
I'm in a similar situation with my two year old 701 4G SSD. I've been playing with TC for a while on other equipment; but with a working wifi for the eee, it would be a perfect match.