Magic City VitaeLog

Q: What Kind of WebCams do you have?

A: I have 5 . 4 of them are running from my server using a program called ZoneMinder. The fifth is hosted by client machines that stream their webcams to ZoneMinder on my server.

The cams are:

The OffceCam - I used to use a Philips SPC610NC/37 and run this cam off my personal workstation. Since that machine died, I had to run the OfficeCam directly from the server. I can't get this thing to work well with Linux, and I'm not surprised. I got it for cheap in the clearance aisle. Under Windows, it works really well. I'm actually shocked. It has a couple cool features, like a bendy 'tail' that allows you to wrap it around things. It also has a built-in light that is very bright.
Instead, I'm now using a Logitech C-200 which is surprisingly good.

The CrabCam - This Cam uses a Logitech C-200 as well as the OfficeCam. It works very well, and Linux picked it up right off the bat without any problems.

The RandomCam - This is actually the WebCam on my EeePC. When it isn't in use, I'll set it up around the house and stream random stuff. One day, it might be a fridge cam, then next day it might be a couch cam.

The YardCam - This is a Dynex (BestBuy) Cam. It's a bad Cam, and I'll never purchase another Dynex product because of it. I can't ever seem to get it to focus correctly, and it doesn't work at all when the light isn't bright and sunny. This is fine for outdoors where other cams typically white-out, but not so great for anything else. It was difficult to find good drivers for it for Linux, but Linux has gotten better over time. I was lucky that somebody found that this thing uses the OV519 chipset, for which, there is a decent OV519 driver. I tried the ones from this site, but they did not work at all! This Driver is supposed to be in the Linux kernel now, but the one there barely works.

The LobsterCam - This is a Phillips SPC110NC/27 WebCam. It uses the newer Video4Linux 2 API and is UVC compliant. This is an interesting new development for USB Devices, as it makes them compliant with multiple OSes and devices. For instance, This Cam is fully compliant with Microsoft Windows Vista and 7, Playstation3, and Sun Solaris. Don't forget Linux.

Q: What Software do you use to Stream the WebCAMS?

A: I use a great program called ZoneMinder, which is an Open Source project that is primarily designed to be a security system. It has a great motion detection system, and a great PHP interface to view and record the data. It also come pre-equiped to be embedded into sites like mine. I find that Zoneminder doesn't work well with some V4L2 devices, or many UVC devices. So, I have to setup MJpeg-Streamer to set up the initial stream. I then point Zoneminder to this local stream. It works well, but Zoneminder is typically about 45-60 seconds behind real time.

Q: What is your Server's Name?

A: Satan.

Q: Why Satan?

A: Here's a little history about the evil name of my server. The server Satan, as evil as that sounds, was originally called Jupiter, after the Roman king of the gods. This was because it was the core of my network, and hosted just about every service I could think of. It ran a version of Slackware Linux... I don't remember which one. That was before it became evil. Suddenly, everything started to break. The Memory went bad, the Video card failed, the Keyboard stopped working. The Monitor fuzzled out. When the Hard Drive went out, I was forced to re-install the OS. A fellow geek friend suggested that I get rid of Slackware, and try FreeBSD. The installation was a breeze, and all I needed were two floppies. The version was 2.5, and 3.x was just around the corner. During the installation, I was prompted for the server name. I was a little pissed at having to reload the OS, and considering all the problems I've had with it, I named it Satan. The name stuck, and it has been Satan for many years.

Q: What OS are you running?

A: Currently, Ubuntu 8.04.1. It has been a number of things over the years. Most recently, I've gone from FreeBSD 5.2.4, to Fedora Core 5, to Core 6, to Ubuntu, to FreeBSD 6.2, 7.0, to Debian, then to Windows 2008 Server. I did try to load NetBSD as an interesting project, but I found that OS to be lacking in a great many ways. I tried to run Windows Server 2008 on there for a pet project for work. Although I found it easy to setup, the machine wouldn't run longer than 5 hours before I needed to reboot it. Either the USB WebCams would stop working, and I'd need to reboot the OS to free up the system resources, or the OS would bluescreen and thus, reboot. I couldn't stand it any longer, and after only 3 weeks, I went back to Linux. The machine has been stable ever since. Great job, MIcrosoft. Lucky for me, they let me try 2008 for free. I'd be very unhappy if I had to shell out many hundreds or thousands of dollars for that Pile.

Q: What kind of Hardware are you running?

A: Satan is an AMD Athalon X2 6400+ with 3 GB of RAM. It runs from an M32SLi Deluxe . Not too shabby. The motherboard is rock solid, and has room for 16GB of RAM. I have about 3 TB of storage in there, with 2.5 TB of that being on 2 external eSATA drives.