On Fri, 10 Jun 2011, Felipe Balbi wrote: > I don't see any problems in this situation. If, for that particular > product, webcam and still image functionality are mutually exclusive, > then that's how the product (and their drivers) have to work. > > If the linux community decided to put webcam functionality in kernel and > still image functionality on a completely separate driver, that's > entirely our problem. And the problem is how to coordinate the two of them. > > 2. Until recently in the history of Linux, there was an irreconcilable > > conflict. If a kernel driver for the video streaming mode was present and > > installed, it was not possible to use the camera in stillcam mode at all. > > Thus the only solution to the problem was to blacklist the kernel module > > so that it would not get loaded automatically and only to install said > > module by hand if the camera were to be used in video streaming mode, then > > to rmmod it immediately afterwards. Very cumbersome, obviously. > > true... but why couldn't we combine both in kernel or in userspace > altogether ? Why do we have this split ? (words from a newbie in V4L2, > go easy :-p) I think the problem may be that the PTP protocol used in the still-cam mode isn't suitable for a kernel driver. Or if it is suitable, it would have to be something like a shared-filesystem driver -- nothing like a video driver. You certainly wouldn't want to put it in V4L2. > Or, to move the libgphoto2 driver to kernel, combine it in the same > driver that handles streaming. No ? No. Something else is needed. Alan Stern -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-media" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
