Maysville Linux Users Group (MLUG) - Linux Users Helping Linux Users >> Tips & Tricks >> Gaim with Webcam Support

Anonymous writes "I thought I would run through the installation of getting a port off of Gaim to work with webcams on yahoo messenger and msn messenger. Gaim is probably one of the most popular instant messenger programs used in Linux, offering support for MSN, Yahoo, Aim, IRQ and offering many types of plug-ins. There is a fork of the Gaim development, known as Gaim-vv which allows webcams to be viewed and streamed using gaim-vv, something the original gaim does not support.

First off, I am using Gentoo with development kernel 2.6.9-r1 and it has been configured with Video4Linux support. My webcam is an Intel CS630 which is fully supported by an optional driver spca50x available from http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca5xx.html This optional driver/module supports many different previously unsupported cameras. Basically I downloaded the tar.gz file from there, configured it per the installation instructions, and then verified that it worked using gnomemeeting. Once I verified the webcam was working this way, I decided to see if there was any webcam software that supported yahoo...which is how I found the gaim port. I was already a user of gaim, so I thought I would run through its configuration.

The gaim-vv web site is here http://gaim-vv.sourceforge.net I basically downloaded all the tar.gz files and followed the installation instructions with a few modifications.

First, I extracted, configured, compiled, and installed libosip using the instructions in the installation page and it completed without errors. I have added a few extra steps for saftey margin.
1) Download and save it to your home directory
2) Extract it
3) ./configure && make
4) su
5) as a safety precaution whenever installing custom code, I always take a snapshot of the file system before and after the installation, then make a diff of the two files which will let me know where each file was placed....in case I ever need to remove it. To do this, simply run find / > packagename.preinst.txt
6) make install
7)as a safety precaution whenever installing custom code, I always take a snapshot of the file system before and after the installation, then make a diff of the two files which will let me know where each file was placed....in case I ever need to remove it. To do this for the post install snapshot, simply run find / > packagename.postinst.txt
8) next I find the difference between the two files and that will list every single file installed by the make install command. I find this by issuing diff packagename.preinst.txt packagename.postinst.txt > packagename.files.txt and then I delete the preinstall and postinstall text files.

Next, I began working on Libj2k also following the installation instructions, which also went without error.
1) Download and save it to your home directory
2) Extract it by doing tar xvfj
3) cd libj2k*
4) ./configure && make
5) su
6) 5) as a safety precaution whenever installing custom code, I always take a snapshot of the file system before and after the installation, then make a diff of the two files which will let me know where each file was placed....in case I ever need to remove it. To do this, simply run find / > packagename.preinst.txt
7) make install
8)as a safety precaution whenever installing custom code, I always take a snapshot of the file system before and after the installation, then make a diff of the two files which will let me know where each file was placed....in case I ever need to remove it. To do this for the post install snapshot, simply run find / > packagename.postinst.txt
9) next I find the difference between the two files and that will list every single file installed by the make install command. I find this by issuing diff packagename.preinst.txt packagename.postinst.txt > packagename.files.txt and then I delete the preinstall and postinstall text files.

Next was the Linphone-im installation, which was performed like so:
1) Download and save it to your home directory
2) Extract it by doing tar xvfj
3) cd linphone-im
4) ./configure && make
If you receive an error about a certain "libr263" then all you have to do is:
a) cd libr263
b) make library
c) cd .. && make
5) su
6)as a safety precaution whenever installing custom code, I always take a snapshot of the file system before and after the installation, then make a diff of the two files which will let me know where each file was placed....in case I ever need to remove it. To do this, simply run find / > packagename.preinst.txt
7) make install

which gave me some problems during the make install step and a quick search of the gaim-vv message forums lead me through several trial and errors before I finally found a resolution. If you have an error that appears to be during the mediastreamer installation specifically concerning libmsspeex.la, try this from the original message here:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=2658050

modify mediastreamer/Makefile.am:

(1) change line 41 to:
lib_LTLIBRARIES = libmediastreamer.la
(that is, remove libmsspeex.la)

(2) comment out line 122 and 123

Once I followed the steps above, I did a make clean && ./configure && make and waited for it to finish then did a make install without errors.

Continuing on, I did:
7) cp config.h /usr/local/include/linphone/linphone_config.h

which also errored and found a typo, it should be:
7) cp config.h /usr/local/include/linphone-im/linphone_config.h
And I selected yes to over write the existing file (I hope this was correct)

Continuing on, I did:
8) mkdir /usr/local/include/mediastreamer
9) cp mediastreamer/*h /usr/local/include/mediastreamer
10)as a safety precaution whenever installing custom code, I always take a snapshot of the file system before and after the installation, then make a diff of the two files which will let me know where each file was placed....in case I ever need to remove it. To do this for the post install snapshot, simply run find / > packagename.postinst.txt
11) next I find the difference between the two files and that will list every single file installed by the make install command. I find this by issuing diff packagename.preinst.txt packagename.postinst.txt > packagename.files.txt and then I delete the preinstall and postinstall text files.

Next on the list per the installation instructiosn was gaim-vv, and I simply followed the instructions given.
1) Download and save to your home directory
2) Extract it by doing tar xvfj
3) cd gaim-0.79-vv*
4) ./configure --with-libj2k=/usr --enable-linphone --enable-msn-vv --prefix=/usr && make

Again, I received an error here which stated:
linphone.c:30:26: linphonecore.h: No such file or directory
linphone.c:33:29: linphone_config.h: No such file or directory
linphone.c:42: warning: `struct _LinphoneCore' declared inside parameter list
linphone.c:42: warning: its scope is only this definition or declaration, which is probably not what you want
linphone.c:47: warning: `struct _LinphoneCore' declared inside parameter list
linphone.c:52: error: syntax error before "lc"
linphone.c:52: warning: type defaults to `int' in declaration of `lc'
linphone.c:52: warning: data definition has no type or storage class
linphone.c:53: error: syntax error before "vtable"
linphone.c:53: warning: type defaults to `int' in declaration of `vtable'
linphone.c:55: warning: initialization makes integer from pointer without a cast
linphone.c:56: warning: excess elements in scalar initializer
linphone.c:56: warning: (near initialization for `vtable')
linphone.c:57: warning: excess elements in scalar initializer
linphone.c:57: warning: (near initialization for `vtable')
linphone.c:58: warning: excess elements in scalar initializer
linphone.c:58: warning: (near initialization for `vtable')
linphone.c:59: warning: excess elements in scalar initializer
linphone.c:59: warning: (near initialization for `vtable')
linphone.c:60: warning: excess elements in scalar initializer
linphone.c:60: warning: (near initialization for `vtable')
linphone.c:61: warning: excess elements in scalar initializer
linphone.c:61: warning: (near initialization for `vtable')
linphone.c:63: warning: excess elements in scalar initializer
linphone.c:63: warning: (near initialization for `vtable')
linphone.c:63: warning: data definition has no type or storage class
linphone.c: In function `linphone_init':
linphone.c:74: warning: implicit declaration of function `linphone_core_init'
linphone.c: In function `linphone_uninit':
linphone.c:86: warning: implicit declaration of function `linphone_core_uninit'
linphone.c: In function `linphone_invite_dialog':
linphone.c:96: warning: implicit declaration of function `linphone_core_invite'
linphone.c: In function `linphone_terminate_dialog':
linphone.c:102: warning: implicit declaration of function `linphone_core_terminate_dialog'
linphone.c: In function `linphone_set_sip_port':
linphone.c:108: warning: implicit declaration of function `linphone_core_set_sip_port'
linphone.c: In function `linphone_set_audio_port':
linphone.c:114: warning: implicit declaration of function `linphone_core_set_audio_port'
linphone.c: In function `linphone_set_video_port':
linphone.c:120: warning: implicit declaration of function `linphone_core_set_video_port'
linphone.c: In function `linphone_set_nat_address':
linphone.c:126: warning: implicit declaration of function `linphone_core_set_nat_address'
linphone.c: In function `linphone_enable_video':
linphone.c:146: error: request for member `video_conf' in something not a structure or union
linphone.c: In function `linphone_show_local_video':
linphone.c:152: error: request for member `video_conf' in something not a structure or union
linphone.c: In function `linphone_set_primary_contact':
linphone.c:158: warning: implicit declaration of function `linphone_core_set_primary_contact'
make[3]: *** [linphone.lo] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/shared/Gentoo-Stuff/webcam-stuff/gaim-0.79-vv-3/plugins/linphone'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/shared/Gentoo-Stuff/webcam-stuff/gaim-0.79-vv-3/plugins'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/shared/Gentoo-Stuff/webcam-stuff/gaim-0.79-vv-3'
make: *** [all] Error 2

Again, I used the message forums to search for errors during the make of gaim-vv and found a thread about specify the linphone directory during the install, so I changed step 4 above to read:
4) ./configure --with-libj2k=/usr --with-linphone-prefix=/usr/local --enable-linphone --enable-msn-vv --prefix=/usr

which worked. then I did:

5) su
6) as a safety precaution whenever installing custom code, I always take a snapshot of the file system before and after the installation, then make a diff of the two files which will let me know where each file was placed....in case I ever need to remove it. To do this, simply run find / > packagename.preinst.txt
7) make install
8)as a safety precaution whenever installing custom code, I always take a snapshot of the file system before and after the installation, then make a diff of the two files which will let me know where each file was placed....in case I ever need to remove it. To do this for the post install snapshot, simply run find / > packagename.postinst.txt
9) next I find the difference between the two files and that will list every single file installed by the make install command. I find this by issuing diff packagename.preinst.txt packagename.postinst.txt > packagename.files.txt and then I delete the preinstall and postinstall text files.

and it finished. NextI tested it, by simply running /usr/bin/gaim as a normal user. I found there was now a right click on a user name and an option to view webcam, but I couldnt figure out how to enable my webcam. I went into account preferences, and under advanced options there was some web cam settings.

No matter what I did to fix this, I could view other peoples webcams but couldnt let others view my webcam. Back to diagnostic mode.....looking over what I had done, realized I placed a lot of dependancy files in locations not normally standard in Gentoo linux, specifically /usr/local/lib. I went back and removed all the installed files and started over again making sure to use the correct installation prefix for every package.

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