Re: Advice Needed

[Tom Droege <tdroege2@earthlink.net>]

First, thanks for all the help so far.  The trouble with this media is that 
you get too many possibilities.

1) Use an ethernet camera.  They seem to cost about $300.  There is support 
shown for one model in the Mandrake hardware compatibility page.  But then 
I still need RS232 on something to run the dome.

2) Telnet.  It does not work on my home network.  One "expert" said he did 
not know how to make it work.   That is enough for me.  If someone with 
more ability than me does not know how to make it work, then I give up real 
fast.

3) Remote Linux pc on the ethernet in the dome.  Looking at the Mandrake 
hardware pages, there is not a single web cam listed.  Plenty of expensive 
cameras.  So unless one of you knows how to attach a simple cheap web cam 
to linux, I give up on linux.  I sure would like to do this with 
linux.  This will help me learn the system.  Surely someone had been 
running little cheap cameras under linux.  But Mandrake did not list any 
unless I don't know where to look.

4)  This leaves me with a Windows 98 machine running in the dome.  I know a 
cheap camera will work on this as I have one (which I can't find at the 
moment) and it once worked.  This leaves getting to the pictures it is 
taking.  It looks like VNC will do this.

Solution:  Put one more Windows 98 machine in the dome.  Put a web cam on 
it.  Install a VNC server on it.  Install a VNC client on the linux machine 
I want to watch it from.  BTW, I am having a terrible time looking at the 
VNC documentation.  It either comes up too small for me to see on the 
screen, or prints half the page on the printer.  Sigh!  Every project in 
computing turns out to be a project.  It has always been so, at least since 
1954 when I first started building computers.

OK, here is what I want to do.  Can I do it?

a) Run the camera continuously (or a picture a second or so) on the windows 
machine and watch it from the linux machine on the local network.
b) Open a DOS window on the Windows machine from the linux machine and run 
programs on the Windows machine.

If possible, just what do I have to install?  OK, I will install the camera 
software that comes with it.
Now what?

Tom Droege


At 06:15 AM 3/19/03 +0000, you wrote:



>On Tue, 18 Mar 2003, Robert Creager wrote:
>
> > If you have a windows computer up in the dome (or linux for that
> > matter), you can use VNC (http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/) to
> > display the remote terminal on your local computer.  Easiest way I've
> > found.  I use this regularly for windows to windows stuff.  For linux
> > to linux, I use ssh which can forward X windows stuff to your local
> > computer from the remote.