Proprietary webcam driver wonders
My girlfriend has a builtin webcam on her new x86_64 laptop.
The webcam has no free drivers, but there is a proprietary one available on linux-projects.org.
Pay 10EUR and you get the driver. Okay, doesn’t sound /so/ bad. But the driver is only available for x86 ubuntu gutsy, no other arch, no other distro, no other kernel. If you want it for /your/ kernel you have to pay 100EUR. Wonderful. There’s no way I’m paying 100EUR for a proprietary webcam driver. Buying a new, working, webcam would even be cheaper! She runs x86_64 so there’s no way to get that driver working there, without paying that 100EUR. The camera is Bus 005 Device 002: ID 0c45:624f Microdia.
If someone does decide to write a free GPLd driver for it, I’ll donate some money to that person (I don’t have 100EUR to give away, but I can do at least 30-50EUR).
This again goes to show the pain of proprietary drivers. I don’t mind *paying* for drivers, but when the drivers cost more than the device did, and a device working equally well would be cheaper than buying the drivers it has gone too far. I would have easily donated money if the page said “here’s the driver, it’s GPL so do what you want, but please donate 10EUR if you can” (and I have donated to FOSS projects before).
Update, see: http://blog.zerodogg.org/2008/04/27/microdia-0c45624f-webcam-on-linux/
December 10th, 2007 at 15:20
It is very frustrating - getting a driver, let alone a stable - good functioning one. There good drivers and not so good ones as well. One does question the logic of installing an x86_64 OS when most of the hardware drivers are written (if at all) first on the x86_32 platforms usually.
The frustration extends to almost any platform OS when it come to peripheral devices.
A perfect case and example is - I bought a Mac Mini recently - and wanted a simple webcam for Skype. Apple does not support any third party cameras and there are VERY few on th market which have OSX drivers. I settled on a common brand (Logitech) - and although I got it to work under OSX with a third party driver - the built in microphone has issues - and I have no one to turn to for support.
Even M$ and the legions of M$ hardware developers don’t usually make the 64bit drivers first (especially for consumer level products!)
This is really unfair, but the burden of compatibility ends up with the end user - and how much is it worth to them to get it to work. Is there really a valid argument why she need the 64bit OS? These things have to be considered at the time of installation - whether the given hardware has support or not.
December 10th, 2007 at 15:27
There isn’t a huge reason why she’d need a 64bit distro, no, but it’ll still be annoying if she can’t run one, seeing as the laptop /is/ 64bit.
The other issue is that even though I could install a 32bit OS, it would HAVE to be Ubuntu 7.10, and I wouldn’t be able to upgrade the kernel with security fixes because he only provides drivers for that one kernel, I’d have to re-donate to get one for an updated kernel.
January 5th, 2008 at 23:18
I’m also looking for a drive for my built-in camera in my laptop (an Amazon PC FL31). When I do an lsusb I got an “Bus 005 Device 002: ID 0c45:624f Microdia” also.
June 20th, 2008 at 19:25
[...] (Re: Proprietary Webcam driver wonders). [...]