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Plug in the USB camera while Linux is running. Do a less /proc/bus/usb/devices | grep Camera to find a line that says Camera. This indicates the webcam has been detected. (Source: http://www.linux-usb.org/FAQ.html )

Download the Quickcam Express driver from Sourceforge. Go to a temporary directory as a normal user and execute tar xvfz filename.tar.gz on the file there. Become root (by typing su root) and move the qce-ga-0.40b directory to /usr/src.

You need to have the kernel source RPM for your current kernel installed. Installation of that RPM automatically creates a /usr/src/linux-2.4 symbolic link to the /usr/src/linux-2.4.x kernel source (where x is your sub-version of 2.4). Now go to the /usr/src directory by typing cd /usr/src.

Once you are in the /usr/src folder and you see the /usr/src/linux-2.4 symbolic link, create a new symbolic link called linux by typing ln -s linux-2.4 linux. Now type exit to go back and become your regular user again.

Enter the quickcam driver source code directory by typing cd /usr/src/qce-ga-0.40b. Type make to create the driver file. You should now see a file if you type ls -l mod_quickcam.o. Become root again, and type chown root:root mod_quickcam.o to change ownership of the mod_quickcam.o file to the root user.

As root, open your /etc/modules.conf in your favorite editor. If there isn't a line present that reads keep, add it. Add the following statement after the 'keep' line: path=/usr/src/qce-ga-0.40b. This will add that qce directory to the list of places for the operating system to look for kernel modules.

Now, still as root, type depmod -a. You will notice that it complains that several files in the qce* directory do not belong to root. Ignore these warnings.

At this point it may be possible to start up the quickcam driver by unplugging it from the USB port and plugging it back into the USB port, but I'm not certain. Rebooting the computer should start the quickcam driver at boot time, and you can tell if the driver is loaded by executing an lsmod when you are the root user. You should see the quickcam driver in the list of modules currently loaded at that time.

Find an install the latest xawtv for your distribution. I recommend using the RPM file, which you can find at rpmfind.net by searching for 'xawtv'.

The webcam will probably be installed as /dev/video0. Once you have installed the xawtv program, you can see the video coming from the webcam by running xawtv -c /dev/video0.

You do not have to have a web server installed to stream your webcam or deliver still pictures from it to a web browser. Download camserv from its Sourceforge page or by searching Freshmeat. Once again I recommend that you install the RPM. The configuration file should be /usr/local/share/camserv.cfg but if you are unable to find it there, become root and run updatedb, then run locate camserv.conf to find it. As root, edit that file as needed to ensure the correct video device is going to be streamed (e.g. /dev/video0). You may not need to change it if you only have one video device.

Be sure to run the camserv program as a normal user, and not as root. Surf to http://localhost:9192/singleframe to ensure it is working. Surfing to http://localhost:9192/ will stream the data to Netscape and Opera users. To stream to Internet Explorer and Mozilla users, you need to use a javascript-based page. Use the javascript.txt file found in the docs folder that is installed by the camserv RPM.