Zone minder for linux non-expert

sally · Post by **sally** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 5:55 am

Hello everyone,

I need a surveillance system at home. I have CentOS on my home laptop. I am rather a novice, I use CentOS but the administration part is largely done by system administrators at work. So I want to know if this is doable by a novice or should I not even try? There seems to be no mysql ("which mysql" yields nothing), and there is no libjpeg.a in the lib directory. I don't even have a webcam yet.

Thank you,
Sally

whatboy · Post by **whatboy** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 6:06 am

There are LiveCDs but will wipe your HDD, maybe if you can find another PC, you could try that!!!

sally · Post by **sally** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 6:12 am

I assume I can download and install mysql and libjpeg.a myself? Is that where I start? I can't erase everything on my laptop. I have another laptop but I can have only one connected to the internet at a time, so I want to have zone minder on the main laptop.

whatboy · Post by **whatboy** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 6:48 am

Well you won't get no where if you don't move, can you???

so then why ask permission to screw your laptop... j/k try it... you'll never find out if you're capable or not if you don't try!!!

Install mysql and the devs...

sally · Post by **sally** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 7:04 am

yeah, that's why i am hesitant - don't want to screw up/lose other stuff on the laptop. i do have root permission but use it very cautiously and hesitantly.

i was reading the wiki pages at http://www.zoneminder.com/wiki/index.ph ... der_1.24.2 , it seems i have to run these as root. are these likely to cause any serious damage?

if all this is too complicated, is there any simple standalone surveillance camera that i can buy that captures images only when motion is detected and stores it in a memory card readable by my laptop?

mitch · Post by **mitch** » Wed Dec 23, 2009 5:06 pm

zoneminder should not be run on a laptop being used as a laptop in most situations. It is best to run zoneminder on an always on desktop/server (as generally most people what 24/7survaliance) but as its cpu and disk requirements can vary it would cause interference or be interfered with a user on their laptop using it most likely. You can buy atom micro machines for $100-200 that would work far better for ZM.