RetailPlus USB Web Camera, RP-CAPU-835. This brand is available at a popular Big Box department store.

It has a small form factor and at $20 makes it ideal for risky or throw away recording jobs. A blue pilot lights up when the camera is on line.

Resolution 640x480, 30fps at 640x480, 54 degree view angle, automatic focus 30cm to infinity, automatic exposure and white balance

Using the image and video capture package Cheese reveals this camera produces good resolution and color rendition of close up images.

Works well with Debian 5.0, kernel 2.6.26-1.686 on a PII at 300MHz. Manual states this camera will work with a Pentium 1 at 166MHz

Module required is uvcvideo.

lsusb give the following:

0ac8:c40a Z-Star Microelectronics Corp

lsusb -v gives a lot more detail, such as:

Manufacturer A4 Tech

Product: A4 Tech USB2.0 PC Camera J

Unknown what chipset is really used. If anyone knows feel free to revise this information.

lsmod shows that this webcam also causes the loading of USB sound modules snd_usb_audio and snd_usb_lib.

Although this particular web cam does not have a microphone it is likely this chipset is used in webcams which have recording capability.

-- LinuxJon - 19 Mar 2009