Bug#304819: spca5xx -- Device driver for USB webcams based on the spca5xx chips

[Agustin Martin <agustin.martin@hispalinux.es>]

On Wed, Apr 20, 2005 at 05:57:02PM -0700, Jeff Carr wrote:
> Jurij Smakov wrote:
> 
> >Since it is becoming more and more a kernel topic, you might also want 
> >to move discussion to debian-kernel.
> 
> Could someone give us a simple rundown of how we would submit a patch to 
> the debian kernel sources to add spca5xx support? The spca5xx driver 
> adds support for a large number of USB cameras. Recently Carlos posted 
> something about adding support to debian-devel and Jurij suggested we go 
> here as it is a kernel issue.

Since you contacted the spca5xx developer, and he didn't seem to care about
putting that driver into the main kernel, I do not see the point in trying
to bypass him for that, even for the Debian kernel. 

Also I see that the original ITP is from Stephen Birch, please coordinate
your steps with him. I would also keep 304819@bugs.debian.org cc'ed for the
records in that wnpp bug entry.

As Jurij sugested I would go first for a spca5xx-modules-source package, so
users can build spca5xx-modules packages for the kernel they want, by means
of make-kpkg or directly. A patch package would require rebuilding the whole
kernel, what is usually not desirable, unless some of the kernel files are
being modified. In most cases a modules package can be built out of the
modules-source package just having the appropriate kernel sources package
installed.

> The module dir is self contained and "smart" in that it uses `uname -r` 
> to determine the kernel headers. So, one can just go into the dir and 
> type make;make install and spca5xx.ko will automatically be loaded the 
> next time the user boots.

And if you want to build the modules for a different kernel?

That said, I have one of these sunplus cameras, I am happy to see that
modules packaged for Debian.

Cheers,

-- 
Agustin