How can I make this into a service?

[Rémy Faure-Vincent]

thanks for your tool, Fangfufu! it works great and it's literally the only one that does so without much hassle :)

I have been looking for a way to make it into a background service that would start when I log in, so that it's always available (since it's paused when unused).

do you have any recommendation for this? my venture into systemd was unsuccessful.

[Fufu Fang]

Nope, I don't have any suggestions on how to do this, and I don't recommend you do this either. To be honest, I am really surprised to hear you want to do this, considering how unstable it can be - sometimes the instability is not even my problem (#127).

[Rui Marques]

Add this to /etc/udev/rules.d/webcam.rules to create systemd bind devices for /dev/videoX system devices.

KERNEL=="video0", SYMLINK="video0", TAG+="systemd"
KERNEL=="video1", SYMLINK="video1", TAG+="systemd"

do it for as much devices as needed.

Then, for instance ~/.config/sytemd/user/fakecam.service:

[Unit]
Description=Linux Fake Background Webcam
BindsTo=dev-video0.device
After=dev-video0.device
BindsTo=dev-video1.device
After=dev-video1.device

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/full/path/to/fake.py

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Again add BindsTo= and After= to as many video devices as you need.

The ExecStart depends on how you have the project installed, you can use %h to indicate the user's home directory if you need.

Personally, I have it setup using a python virtualenv so I actually call a wrapper script I called fakecam:

#!/usr/bin/env sh

cwd=$PWD
cd /full/path/to/Linux-Fake-Background-Webcam || exit
. ./env/bin/activate
./fake.py
deactivate
cd "$cwd" || exit

And I use that in ExecStart instead.

[Rémy Faure-Vincent]

that is cool, thank you very much.

I'll see if it breaks my laptop over time :)

[Fufu Fang]

@ruifm , thanks a lot! If you have any scripts / tips on setting up venv, please submit a pull request, or opening up an issue. I plan to work on it later, I just haven't got around to do it yet.

[Fufu Fang]

@RemyFV , it is not going to break your laptop over time. Personally I find it easier to run it in a terminal. So I know when things break down.

@ruifm , @RemyFV , please share your OS version, v4l2loopback version, Python version, Mediapipe version, Numpy version, if you don't mind. There are other users who experience stability issues. I think they would appreciate these info.

[Rémy Faure-Vincent]

I'm on debian 12, v4l2loopback from repo so 0.12.5 I guess. I'll check the rest out tomorrow and come back to you.

it's very stable for me - went on 30m 1h calls without any issues. the only little problem I have is that I need to set the threshold to something like 5 to get a usable picture even with my actual green screen background, but I'm more than understanding here.

the hologram filter makes it look cool, even :)

[Rui Marques]

@ruifm If you have any scripts / tips on setting up venv, please submit a pull request, or opening up an issue. I plan to work on it later, I just haven't got around to do it yet.

Imo setting up a python venv is such a simple thing it does not warrant special docs, but maybe I do not represent the majority. A simple comprise would be suggesting setting up a venv and linking to the arch wiki on how to do it but that decision is up to you, I'm not good on writing user docs 😉

@ruifm , @RemyFV , please share your OS version, v4l2loopback version, Python version, Mediapipe version, Numpy version, if you don't mind. There are other users who experience stability issues. I think they would appreciate these info.

Well, I'm not experiencing any stability issues but ok:

• os: archlinux (kernel 5.12.13)
• v4l2loopback: 0.12.5-1 v4l2loopback-dmks from archlinux repos
• python: 3.9.6 (system python)
• mediapipe: 0.8.7.1 (from just using a python venv and running pip -r requirements.txt)
• numpy: 1.21.2 (same origin as mediapipe)

[Fufu Fang]

@RemyFV , I am very surprised that you need to change threshold and you have an actual green screen. It works reasonably well in my cluttered background, until I hang up my washings. It thinks my clothes is an actual person.

[Rémy Faure-Vincent]

the camera on my Thinkpad T480s is bad and my lighting isn't that good either. I'll send you some before / after pictures in a PM, you'll tell me if it looks normal to you !

[Rémy Faure-Vincent]

Debian 12 Bookworm, kernel 5.10.0-8-amd64
v4l2loopback 0.12.5 (from the official github repository)
Python 3.9.7 (from debian 12 repository, not 100% sure)
mediapipe 0.8.7.1
numpy 1.19.5 (both from pip -r requirements.txt)

I sent you a mail with screenshots for the threshold thing!