Paul - The Programmer

Module Assistant is a powerful tool to build Debian kernel modules without re-compile the whole linux kernel. Module Assitant extramly facilitate the process of building kenerl modules by automatically download the module source code from Debian package repository and compile the source code to generate kernel module binary file. 

Moduel Assistant requires to run as root. With Module Assistant, the process of building kernel module is simplyfied to 5 steps.

- Install Module Assistant, 

$ sudo apt-get install module-assistant

- Prepare the artifact for building kernel modules,

$ sudo m-a prepare

The command will automatically download and install the kernel headers corresponding to current kernel and needed building tools like gcc, make and so on.

- Update the module assitant suppored module list,

$ sudo m-a update

-  Check supported module list,

$ sudo m-a list

- Build the needed module, such as, the module for Logitech Quickcam,

$ sudo m-a a-i qc-usb-source

Option a-i stands for automatic installation.

1. Build the quickcam kernel module -- the easiest way

The module-assitant is a tool for building Debian kernel module from source. With the help of module-assitant, the needed module can be built without building the whole kernel. It fetches module-source package that have been prepared for the Debian via apt and produeces the *.deb package.

1.1 Install module-assitant

# aptitude install module-assistant

1.2 Download needed kernel headers and tools

# m-a prepare

1.3 Check the sources.list if the contrib and non-free repositories are included.

1.4 Build the quickcam kernel module

# m-a a-i qc-usb-source

1.5 Check if the /dev/video0 node is created

2. Install camera software

# aptitude camorama

3. Plug the webcam into usb and startup the camorama. If everything goes well, you should see the picture captured in the application window.

It works like a charm.  ;-)