ZoneMinder Forums

Hi I have Ubuntu 6 and for some reason I can't see Zoneminder in any menu. I have changed the menu or edited the menu somehow with a shortcut but don't remember how to do it. Zoneminder shows that it is installed in synaptic. I downloaded and installed an unstable version from the zoneminder site.
Well I worked out how to edit the menu but zoneminder is not in there. I did some further reading and it seems there is more work to be done. Phew I am not that good with linux yet. Umm I would appreciate something more basic or step by step patient help if anyone has that type of patience. My only problem is that if I have to donwload something I will have to take the machine(laptop) to a local wifi hotspot as for some reason a couple of months ago the laptop stoped working with the home dsl connection. This has happened before and was such a nightmare that I decided to reinstall unbuntu. I also couldn't access the wifi thing either. I don't even remember how I got the net back on at anytime. It was just driving me nuts!

Zoneminder interface is a web based application, so you will need to have a web server (apache2) installed and configured on your ubuntu.

Take a look at this howto for zoneminder on ubuntu:
http://www.howtoforge.com/video_surveil ... der_ubuntu

I saw that page but it has so much that doesn't apply to me and I got lost. I don'y know what a web based application is either. I don't know what apache is either. I have heard of it. Does this means that using that application means I have to be connected to the net for it to do it's job? Because if that is so it is not useful to me. It was my understanding that there was something like that but that also there was an ability to be sort of offline. Anyway too tired to bash at it tonight so wil tackle again tomorrow! Goodnight.

If it's installed, try getting to it from http://localhost/zm

Yeah I tried that but I can't remember exactly what i got. It was one of those typical errors like a 404 thing. You know like your not connecting to a web page. Am I supposed to be connected to the net at the time? I really don't understand that side of things.

Did you install it like this?
http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.ph ... rom_a_.deb

Hi I don't remember how I installed it but now it is installed. The trouble is that I can't preview. I have a feeling I stuffed up somewhere before in stalling ZM because vlc and another app are not showing videos. They play sound though. Although I just got xine working by getting some plugin package for it. I got every video plugin I could find but I am still not getting a preview in ZM and can't see video still in vlc. I can hear audio in vlc though.

Try looking at it from a machine that you know works first...

I am not sure what you mean. The machine works.

Most of my ZM installs are headless. As ZM does everything with jpeg, it does not need xine or vlc or anything. I look at it with other systems using firefox.

I don't know what headless means. My point about vlc and xine is that I can't view any video at all now. I think whatever I did in a day or so before installing ZM is the reason I can't preview in ZM or see video in vlc. I don't know what I did or remember anything. It is too long ago.
Actually I did download some other plugins and I can see some videos in xine but nothing in vlc.

Is there anything important on the machine? Sounds like a good time for a fresh install, so you can document what you install, what works at which point in the process, etc. It's a pain, but it's the only way to know what's going on. If you don't know what's up with the system, it's a lot more difficult to ask questions, or find the right advice.

If your net connection isn't reliable, see if your locale has a linux user group. In my location, at least, they dedicate at least part of their meetings to installation.

Thanks but I only reinstalled a couple of months ago and it was very painful. To get connected to the net and several other problems because of my lack of experience with linux maybe. It is not my main machine for working on so maybe I will just leave it. I am probably going to try on another machine at some point.
I think there are linux meetings but they are held in places I can't get to without a car. I am in Sydney, Australia.

Get a thumb drive, and go into var/cache/apt/archives and copy all the debs. (A CD works as well. Mine is 95 meg right now) Now when you reinstall, copy those debs back. Those were all the debs you downloaded to install extras or upgrade since install. Cuts your download time to 0.

Yeah I do have a thumb drive but I am tragically out of time with this thing. I have too many things on my plate. I will think about it next week maybe. Thanks.