Copy ur /etc/X11/xorg.conf to a safe place and then replace it by the xorg.conf.backup and check if after that the GNOME works with no error. If everything goes ok than it's a problem with the installation of the nvidia driver, try to google it . And if after that the problem continues just copy the xorg.conf to /etc/X11

I'm just a linux beginner. Maybe this page could give you some more informations:"Configuring your webcam to work under Linux",
Url: http://www.linux.com/feature/118896

There is something written about the Ricoh builtin R5U870.
My opinion: Maybe you have to built the function in the kernel or built it as a loadable module which you could load with modprobe manually (or at the boot over entry in /etc/modules.conf).

Today at last, after a whole week, I had the time to work a bit more on it. I reinstalled the nVidia drivers and everything seems to be fine now. I also took the chance to install the mp3 support, which had always caused me no little deal of pain in my previous Linux experiences. Everything went fine this time, instead. Ubuntu definitely rocks.

However, the damn motion eye is still refusing to work. I've installed the drivers, but to no avail. aMSN won't detect it, nor will camorama or Xawtv. I found on a few forums some mentions of a patch for the r5u870_0.10.0-4 drivers that some people used to get their Ricoh to work on the Vaio of the FZ series, but quite frankly I have no idea of how to patch a driver. Does anyone know?

Btw, I've noticed that the screensavers won't work and that the screen will simply go black after the selected inactivity span. Any ideas? Not that I really mind the black screen, I'm just wondering.

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen

To patch a driver you will basically need the source code of the driver and the patch itself. You patch the source code with the command "patch" (try "man patch" to some info on how to use it) and then you compile the new patched source. Compiling/patching is mostly for advanced users, though. I'd suggest you to find some already made package with the driver compiled for your distro. I did a little research for you and ended up here: http://download.tuxfamily.org/arakhne/pool/ricoh-webcam-r5u870/
Check if any of the .deb files are suitable for you and good luck.

just wondering if you got the webcam working.

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen

shaka wrote:

qrwteyrutiyoup wrote:

just wondering if you got the webcam working.

Not yet, unfortunately. I've tried everything and now I just don't have the time anymore, with university and stuff I guess that will have to wait a bit.

ah, I understand. don't give up too easily, though. you have been fighting against it for just something more than a month
anyway, I recently got a laptop and it looks like it has that same webcam (I barely had time to use it properly). I'll let you know if I have any luck in the process of trying to make it work.

I got my webcam working, but I found out it's not based on ricoh's chip, so I had to try a different driver.
I'm not a ubuntu user, but since I had a 7.10 version around I decided to check it out and build the driver for you.
Here is it http://www.larces.uece.br/~sergio/archives/fz18m-r5u870-u710.tar.gz
I don't know how to build a .deb package and I'm not really interested in learning how to do so, then I just got the files and created a tarball.
Some instructions for you to install it:

--------------------------------------------------------------

Untar the file
$ tar zxvf fz18m-r5u870-u710.tar.gz

- INSTALLING
============

1. Copy the module somewhere into your kernel modules tree:
# cp r5u870.ko /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/kernel/drivers/misc
# depmod -a

2. Copy the microcode to the firmware directory:
# cp r5u870_1837.fw /lib/firmware/2.6.22-14-generic

- LOADING THE DRIVER
====================

Once you have installed the driver, you can load it:

# modprobe r5u870

--------------------------------------------------------------

Again, I couldn't test it, since my webcam is different from yours, but I applied that little patch you mentioned before and it was reported to work, from a few user on the ubuntu forum. Hopefully it's gonna work for you as well. Try it with the new skype beta. It supports video now and should work for you (as it did for me).
Good luck.

Thank you ^^ I foresee I'm going to have yet another deadly week, but I trust I'll have the time to test it next weekend I'll let you know how it goes.

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen

Tried it, but it's still refusing to work...This time I've really tried everything :S

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen

sorry to hear that. I fear I can't help anymore. if I at least had that same cam to test...
good luck, anyway. one day you might get it working heh

Let's say I'm in the computer lab of my university, and that I connect my Linux laptop to the local server in order to surf the internet. If I wanted to use the LAN printer too, but if the configuration tool failed to automatically see it, I would theoretically need the printer's IP in order to use it, right? Is there a way to find it or do I just have to ask the technician here?

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen

hmm.. what do you see when you type the command "smbtree" in a console? (as root)

Sorry, haven't been to university for a few days so I had no access to the local network. Here's the output anyway:

MSHOME
\\FABIO-LAPTOP fabio-laptop server (Samba, Ubuntu)
\\FABIO-LAPTOP\IPC$ IPC Service (fabio-laptop server (Samba, Ubuntu))
\\FABIO-LAPTOP\print$ Printer Drivers

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen

Here comes that terribly annoying question I still haven't found an answer to: GNOME or KDE? Which one do you use, which one do you prefer and why? Just a little survey. I'm a curious person Has anyone had a chance to try KDE4 yet?

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen

shaka wrote:

Here comes that terribly annoying question I still haven't found an answer to: GNOME or KDE? Which one do you use, which one do you prefer and why? Just a little survey. I'm a curious person Has anyone had a chance to try KDE4 yet?

gnome or kde?
hmm.. none of those. xfce is my fave window manager. if there were only the two options you put, though, I would surely stay with gnome. It was more attractive by the time I used it (a few years ago) than kde was. the features I was interested at by that time were better implemented by gnome. and in general I prefer things written in gtk (gnome, xfce) than qt (kde). havent tried kde 4, though. the screenshots look interesting.

just a note.. please create separate topics to ask different questions. it would be easier to find the topic, then, and more people interested on that specific subject would be able to see it.

You're right, I'm sorry to go back on topic, I finally managed to get the damn webcam to work ^^ I think the module somehow refused to load at boot, although I'm not sure why. I simply reinstalled - yet again - the drivers and added again the r5u870 line to /etc/modules and it suddenly started to work...go figure.

How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen