Only yesterday I finally decided to take the time to try to set up my Asus X20s webcam, and it didn’t take as long as I was expecting!

After searching a little I found the French ubuntu-fr website that had the tutorial.

The webcam in my laptop is a Syntek one which also is inside a bunch of other Asus models.

So, here are the steps that worked for me:

1. Check the table in the ubuntu-fr website under the section Compabilité to check your model. Mine is a X20s and is NOT on the table so, maybe yours also isn’t, this means the best way is to check the USB Id. Just execute the command:
   $ lsus
   on a terminal and you should see the Ids of your connected USB devices. Check for an Id present in the Compabilité table (first column). Mine was 174f:6a33.
2. If you ain’t got yet the linux headers, install them by running:
   $ sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
   Also, you’ll need subversion and build-essential (but it is likely that you already have it installed if you’re a developer):
   $ sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion
3. Now that you’re all set, create a folder (I suggest the name “syntek”) which will contain the driver’s source and checkout the source from the SVN repository:
   $ mkdir syntek
   $ cd syntek
   $ svn co https://syntekdriver.svn.sourceforge.net/
   svnroot/syntekdriver/trunk/driver
   (the last command above are to be considered only one line. It was screwing my website layout )
   Warning for non-geeks: You’ll see a bunch of stuff on the console output and be asked to accept something, just enter “t” and you’re done.
4. Now enter the driver folder and download a special Makefile:
   $ cd driver
   $ wget http://bookeldor-net.info/merdier/Makefile-syntekdriver
5. Once you get it, compile it and install it:
   $ make -f Makefile-syntekdriver
   $ sudo make -f Makefile-syntekdriver instal
6. Assuming the compilation and installation were successful, load the module:
   $ sudo modprobe stk11xx
   This might take a little but after it’s done your cam must now be able to fly!
7. In case you want to check if the system is recognizing the camera now, just use the commands:
   $ dmesg |tail
   $ sudo lsusb -v|grep -A 8 Syntek
   And check the Syntek related output.
   The webcam module will be loaded automatically the next time you restart your system so, no worries.

Now you’re ready for the wonders of your nice webcam! Check Skype options for the Video settings, it should now have found the Syntek driver and give you the “test” option which you can have fun watching your face when you cannot solve that damned bug!

And that’s all folks, hope it was useful. Have fun and let me know if you missed anything or if you find a bug in this tutorial.

Here are two nice videos explaining how to do a simple deb package.

This is a great way of getting people to become a MOTU:

KDE or, for us GNOME lovers, “the other one” (just kidding) was just released with an aim in testers and lovers in order to identify issues.

Give it a chance if you want to check a great graphical environment.

BluePad v0.5 has just been released.

This new version features a complete redesign of the main menu to support more variate phone screens.
Also, the Title Screen of death that makes you press 5 every time you use BluePad is now gone forever!!

Apart from that, some part of the code was also refactored.

Currently the new version is only available on SVN but we plan on releasing it to SourceForge ASAP.

Here’s how to get the new jar:

$ svn co https://bluepad.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/bluepad/trunk/bluepad_mobile

This will create a bluepad_mobile folder in your current directory containing BluePad and BluePad_alternative folders.
The jar is inside the bin folder of both of the BluePad mobile versions.

Use the regular BluePad version unless you have a Nokia S60 or another phone that doesn’t like the normal version.
Hope you like the new main menu. The next scheduled changes will make BluePad even better but that’s a secret kept in a scroll deep in a mysterious Portuguese city’s catacombs where everybody can go in but only me and Valério come out alive.

So, after a few work, BitNami has just released the DjangoStack.
For a brief introdction of BitNami Stacks in case you don’t know them.

Stacks are packages that make it easy to install and deploy open source applications. They join the main application and all its dependencies in a cross-platform installer. This way you can install Django, SQLite, MySQL, Apache and all of their dependencies, and choose whether to create a new project at installation time, use MySQL or SQLite… etc. with just a few clicks and answers!!
Now ain’t this cool!?

This first release is available for Linux and Mac OS X users.

Also check out the other great apps available from BitNami.