Webcam problems with Ubuntu?

Question

I have version 11.1 Ubuntu OS(Which is Linux). I have a Sony vaio computer that has a webcam built into it. The problem is that I can't get the webcam to work at all. I was wondering if one of you knew how to fix this problem.

Answer 1

I have a lot of experience with Linux and I can tell you webcam is very difficult to get working. There is literally no support for webcams on Linux and built-in webcams are more difficult to get working. Generally built-in hardware has software written into it that makes it work fine on Windows, but not at all on other machines. You can check out pre-written drivers out there for compatibility, but there will be little or no support for programs like Skype.

Answer 2

Here is the Official Ubuntu Webcam Documentation

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Webcam





LUg.

Answer 3

Open a terminal and type

lsusb

It'll return you much stuff about the hardware of your computer. Find where is the line about your webcam. If you find nothing, try with "lspci" instead of lsusb. Try to find the exact model of the webcam and do a search on google, with that keyword and linux.



For example, on my netbook, I have something like

"Bus 001 Device 003: ID 064e:a102 Suyin Corp. Acer/Lenovo Webcam [CN0316]"

With both "064e:a102" and "CN0316", I can find informations about the drivers I should use.



If you can't solve your problem in a reasonable time, you can try to connect irc.freenode.net (with an irc client), join the chatroom #ubuntu, and ask for help.