Tag Archives: Logitech

Udev rule to run a script after plugging in USB device on Ubuntu Linux operating system

Logitech QuickCam E3500 Web CamFor my video chat sessions I use my Logitech E3500 USB web cam. On my Linux box this hardware device sort of works fine, but it does have it's own set of quirks I've developed workarounds for over the years. One of the things that bug me is that even though you can change it's configuration options trough GUI or CLI, this hardware device has it's defaults, and these defaults are back every time you plug it in. In this article I'll show you how to create script that changes web cam settings using CLI tools I've explained in one of my earlier articles, and how to make this script being executed every time web cam is plugged in.

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Webcam settings control on Ubuntu Linux operating system

Logitech QuickCam E3500 Web CamIn the last few years the functionality cost of running Linux operating system shrunk. Good hardware support is one of the last things Linux is lacking when compared to other operating systems. That isn't really Linux community's fault. The hardware manufacturers are to blame for not supporting their own hardware on operating systems other than the proprietary ones. The Linux community developers are actually doing miracles with hardware support and I thank them on doing such a great work. Web cam support was once blind spot on Linux supported hardware list. But today we have Video4Linux video capture framework supported by UVC and GSPCA web cam drivers and most web cams are working happily on our Linux PCs.

It can be very confusing for someone who have just installed Ubuntu to discover that his web cam is working, but that he has no control over settings like brightness, contrast, auto exposure etc. Typical proprietary operating system user would use controls provided by web-cam drivers to adjust these settings. But we're not left out in the cold because Linux community provides means to control our web cams. Let me present applications I use on my Ubuntu PC with my Logitech E3500, Logitech E2500 and many other no-name web cams to adjust their video and other settings.

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Logitech webcam and "cannot set freq 16000 to ep 0x86" (Ubuntu bug #459445)

Some Logitech web-cams have serious problems all of the last kernel revisions (somewhere since 2.6.26 kernel revision). Sometimes when user starts its Linux OS things with web-cam go bad. Symptoms are "Waiting for sound system to respond" when clicking at the sound icon in system tray and ton of "cannot set freq 16000 to ep 0x86" in your /var/log/kern.log. What solves this problem when this occurs is removing snd-usb-audio kernel module from kernel and plugging it back. Cause of this bug is still unknown, and some say it is a bug in some Logitech webcam firmwares which gets triggered by something in Linux boot process. Lets work around it on Debian, Ubuntu and its derivatives...

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