Problem with running Logitech webcam working in Skype on Ubuntu 10.04 “Lucid Lynx”

Here is a pretty simple fix that I found when using the Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX under Ubuntu 10.04 “Lucid Lynx” that may also apply to older versions of Ubuntu.

If the webcam does not show your video, the trick is to force it to use an older V4l library

Under Lucid Lynx, right click on the menus in the top corner and choose “Edit Menus”

Then go to “Internet”, select “Skype” and then “Properties” button.

You have an option of using one of the following as the Command

skype-wrapper

or for a 32-bit system

bash -c ‘export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so; skype’

or for a 64-bit system

bash -c ‘export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so; skype’

Then close Skype and restart with the shortcut under “Applications” menu, “Internet”, “Skype”.

To test if the change worked, choose “Options” from the menu in Skype, then “Video Devices”, and then the “Test” button. You should see yourself in the test window.

To find out what camera you are using, run the following command in a terminal window…

Go to the “Applications” Menu, “Accessories”, and “Terminal”.

Type the following command and then hit Enter to see all of the USB devices connected to your PC, one of which will be the USB webcam.

lsusb

Mine shows

Bus 003 Device 004: ID 046d:08d7 Logitech, Inc. QuickCam Communicate STX

Installing Evolution 2.29.3 with mapi plugin under Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic

UPDATE: 2.29.5 is available.

Just change the version number in the wget lines below in Step 2 and follow the remaining steps as below taking care to update the new version number where appropriate.

You should not need to uninstall anything in advance.

Download, compile and install the following 4 files…

gtkhtml-3.29.5.tar.bz2

evolution-data-server-2.29.5.tar.bz2

evolution-2.29.5.tar.bz2

evolution-mapi-0.29.5.tar.bz2

ALERT: This posting relates to an “unstable release” of Evolution.  Although you may improve functionality against an Exchange 2007 server, you may also suffer from degraded performance. Install at your own risk.

These are the steps I followed to install the very latest unstable development version of Gnome Evolution.  It requires you to upgrade a few components over what is included in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala by default.

1. Run Applications menu-> Accessories-> terminal

2. Get the latest code tarballs by typing the following commands into the terminal window (note that we get two versions of the evolution code as the newest one appears to be missing a required file)

mkdir ~/evolution

cd ~/evolution

wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/gtkhtml/3.29/gtkhtml-3.29.3.tar.bz2

wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/evolution-data-server/2.29/evolution-data-server-2.29.3.tar.bz2

wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/evolution/2.29/evolution-2.29.3.tar.bz2

wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/evolution/2.29/evolution-2.29.3.2.tar.bz2

wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/evolution-mapi/0.29/evolution-mapi-0.29.3.tar.bz2

3. Get prereqs for building each of the packages by typing the following commands into the terminal window

sudo apt-get install libdb-dev libnspr4-dev libnss3-dev libical-dev libsqlite3-dev

sudo apt-get install bison intltool gnome-core-devel evolution-data-server-dev libcanberra-gtk-dev

sudo apt-get install libgtkhtml3.8-dev network-manager-dev libunique-dev libhal-dev

sudo apt-get install libgtkimageview-dev libpst-dev libnotify-dev

sudo apt-get install libmapi-dev samba4-dev libglib2.0-dev

4. Extract the source code from the tarballs with the following commands

tar xjvf gtkhtml-3.29.3.tar.bz2

tar xjvf evolution-data-server-2.29.3.tar.bz2

tar xjvf evolution-2.29.3.tar.bz2

tar xjvf evolution-2.29.3.2.tar.gz

tar xjvf evolution-mapi-0.29.3.tar.bz2

5. Now we should have a folder for each of the components under our ~/evolution folder, so we visit each folder in turn and build and install. Check for the screen for any errors, particularly after each install command, to see if the individual component built ok.  If you experience any errors, leave a comment here so that we can determine if a prerequisite is missing from your environment.

cd ~/evolution/gtkhtml-3.29.3

./configure

make

sudo make install

cd ~/evolution/gtkhtml-3.29.3

./configure

make

sudo make install

cd ~/evolution/evolution-data-server-2.29.3

./configure

make

sudo make install

cd ~/evolution/evolution-2.29.3

./configure

make

sudo make install

cd ~/evolution/evolution-2.29.3.2

./configure

make

sudo make install

cd ~/evolution/evolution-mapi-0.29.3

./configure

make

sudo make install

6. If everything built alright, you should now be able to launch Evolution and check in the Help menu -> About to confirm that you are running 2.29.3.2 now.  You should also have improved (but still buggy) calendar functionality if you have an Exchange 2007 email server  As stated at the top of this posting, this is an unstable release of code under very active development at the moment. Only try these steps if you can cope with Evolution not working or working intermittently.

If you are dependent on Evolution to work and it does not currently meet your requirements with the version you have already installed, then try the steps shown here.

Gnome Evolution Updates for Karmic

The latest unstable release of Gnome Evolution 2.29.3 was released yesterday with an updated 0.29.3 mapi plugin and provides a marked improvement over the current stable release in Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 (i.e. Evolution 2.28.1 and evolution-mapi 0.28.0).

The roadmap for releases of the latest Gnome components is shown here

I have tested the 2.29.3 release for Evolution against the Exchange 2007 server and can report that the Global Address List is fully functional and the email part of Evolution works well with the mapi plugin.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the calendar functionality which had a caniption and froze on any attempt to access.

So the good news is, you can use Evolution cleanly to talk to an Exchange 2007 server now as long as you only want to use email.

I will document the steps required for anyone adventurous enough and prepared to deal with what is code under active development.

Using Evolution with Exchange 2007

Having just upgraded to Karmic Koala Ubuntu 9.10, I tried connecting to an MS Exchange 2007 Server in the office with the default email reader, Gnome Evolution (version 2.28.1), using its MAPI plugin (version 0.28.0).

Not sure if this worked with previous versions but it certainly doesn’t now.

There are two issues I noticed, one relates to a crash when trying to view certain emails (could not detect the pattern) and another crash after waiting for Evolution to retrieve the message-ids from my Inbox.

The good news is, there is a fix available.

You will need to download and manually install an updated MAPI plugin (version 0.28.1).

Here are the steps

1. Run Applications menu-> Accessories-> terminal

2. Uninstall the existing plugin if you have it installed by typing into the terminal window…

sudo apt-get remove evolution-mapi

3. Get some pre-requisite packages

sudo apt-get install evolution-data-server-dev libedataserverui1.2-dev libebackend1.2-dev libecal1.2-dev libedata-cal1.2-dev libedata-book1.2-dev libcamel1.2-dev

sudo apt-get install evolution-dev libmapi-dev samba4-dev intltool

4. Get the latest version of that MAPI plugin and build it

(UPDATED: 21st Dec 2009 There is now an updated version 0.28.2, so just substitute the version number in the instructions below)

cd ~

wget http://download.gnome.org/sources/evolution-mapi/0.28/evolution-mapi-0.28.1.tar.bz2

tar xvjf evolution-mapi-0.28.1.tar.bz2

cd evolution-mapi-0.28.1/

./configure

make

sudo make install

5. Bathe in the glory of Exchange 2007 connectivity 😀

NOTE: This circumvents the Ubuntu repositories for this particular plugin.  Once the updated version is available in the repositories, it would be prudent to revert to using the Ubuntu-provided version so you continue to get updates in future.

TODO: Our setup involves an Exchange Hub Transport which is what MS Outlook email client talks to, with separate server for Global Address List (GAL) and another server for the mailbox which I am using.  I assume this arrangement is what makes the GAL inaccessible as I have configured the settings for my mailbox server.  There does not appear to be anywhere I can set which server the GAL is on.