Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
Hello,
I have a little problem. I have a Clevo M551N laptop, I've been running Linux for more than a year now as a regular user. My laptop works perfectly well under Ubuntu (currently running 7.10), except for my webcam. Strangely enough, I've installed its driver under Vista and still doesn't work. It used to work under XP. The Vista driver yet did not work.
However, I'd be more interested to get it to work under Linux. First of all, how do I determine what driver do I need and secondly where do I get it? I don't even know what is the webcam model (it is embedded with the laptop).
I hope someone can help.
Best Regards,
Ederico.
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Thanks a lot, I managed.
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Please tell us how?
zeddock @ gmail.com -
I'm not sure if you got your webcam working under Linux. Congrats if you did. In the hopes of helping others, I thought I would respond to your post and outline how I've managed to get various webcams working under Linux. First off, you need to find out what webcam it is, and then see if there is a linux driver available for it. Then you need to properly install the driver, and test it somehow. Since most webcams, (and almost all built in webcams), are USB devices, you can figure out your webcam Vendor and Product ID, by using the linux USB utility, lsusb. If you don't have it installed by default with your Linux distribution, then you should find out what package you'll need to install, to install this utility. For example, on my Gentoo installation, you install this utility by installing the usbutils package. Running the command as the super, or root, user, will give you information about all USB devices connected to your computer;
Looking at this list you can see several devices that are identified by where they are, which USB Bus and Device ID, and more importantly you can see what their Vendor and Product ID is in hexadecimal format. Figuring out which device is your webcam can take a little bit of detective work. Sometimes there is a manufacturer noted for a particular USB device, and that can help you figure out the device. You can easily see from this list that there is a Microsoft Keyboard connected to this computer, and I'll tell you that the Kensington device is a Kensington mouse. I know that the AuthenTec device is the fingerprint scanner, and the ASUStek device is the bluetooth HW. At this point you could use the lsusb tool to ask for more detail on all USB devices, or on a specific device. If you do a lsusb -v, it will report back [v]erbose details on all your USB devices. That's a lot of information to scroll through, so to choose a specific device you need to use the lsusb -v and -d parameter. Since I know that the built-in webcam is the last device, here's the verbose output of that USB device;Code:lsusb Bus 007 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 006 Device 002: ID 047d:1020 Kensington Bus 006 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 005 Device 002: ID 045e:00db Microsoft Corp. Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 V1.0 Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0b05:1712 ASUSTek Computer, Inc. Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 003 Device 002: ID 08ff:1600 AuthenTec, Inc. Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000 Bus 002 Device 005: ID 0424:2507 Standard Microsystems Corp. Bus 001 Device 003: ID 174f:6a31 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
There is a way to cheat on discovering the Vendor and Product ID for your webcam, if you have Windows and a proper Windows driver installed for your webcam. Just select the webcam device under the Device Manager, and look at the details for the device. The vendor and product ID numbers are at the beginning of that string of numbers.Code:lsusb -v -d 174f:6a31 Bus 001 Device 003: ID 174f:6a31 Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 64 idVendor 0x174f idProduct 0x6a31 bcdDevice 0.05 iManufacturer 1 Syntek iProduct 2 USB2.0 iSerial 10 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 147 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 0 bmAttributes 0x80 (Bus Powered) MaxPower 500mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class bInterfaceSubClass 255 Vendor Specific Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 255 Vendor Specific Protocol iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0000 1x 0 bytes bInterval 5 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN bmAttributes 1 Transfer Type Isochronous Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0000 1x 0 bytes bInterval 1 Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 1 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class bInterfaceSubClass 255 Vendor Specific Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 255 Vendor Specific Protocol iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0002 1x 2 bytes bInterval 5 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN bmAttributes 1 Transfer Type Isochronous Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0300 1x 768 bytes bInterval 1 Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 2 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class bInterfaceSubClass 255 Vendor Specific Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 255 Vendor Specific Protocol iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0002 1x 2 bytes bInterval 5 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN bmAttributes 1 Transfer Type Isochronous Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x03fc 1x 1020 bytes bInterval 1 Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 3 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class bInterfaceSubClass 255 Vendor Specific Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 255 Vendor Specific Protocol iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0002 1x 2 bytes bInterval 5 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN bmAttributes 1 Transfer Type Isochronous Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0400 1x 1024 bytes bInterval 1 Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 4 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class bInterfaceSubClass 255 Vendor Specific Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 255 Vendor Specific Protocol iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0002 1x 2 bytes bInterval 5 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN bmAttributes 1 Transfer Type Isochronous Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0c00 2x 1024 bytes bInterval 1 Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 5 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class bInterfaceSubClass 255 Vendor Specific Subclass bInterfaceProtocol 255 Vendor Specific Protocol iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type Interrupt Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0002 1x 2 bytes bInterval 5 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN bmAttributes 1 Transfer Type Isochronous Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x1400 3x 1024 bytes bInterval 1 Device Qualifier (for other device speed): bLength 10 bDescriptorType 6 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 64 bNumConfigurations 1 Device Status: 0x0000 (Bus Powered)
So now that you've found out what kind of webcam you have, on this output you see that this is a Syntek webcam, you can google around the net and see if there is a Linux driver available, and lucky for us, the driver project's homepage is the very first link. Now you have a good idea of what driver you need, the first thing you should do is check with your Linux distribution's package manager, and see if you can install the driver by just selecting it, as you do your video or WiFi hardware. If you're not sure, you should ask in your Linux distribution's user forums for help. If the driver is not available with your distribution's package manager, then following the instructions from the driver project's website is usually enough to get the driver installed and working. Additionally they usually have suggestions on the driver project's website, as to how you can test the driver and webcam under Linux.
If your lsusb output isn't as clear as this example, in other words, you're still not sure of the manufacturer even after getting verbose details on the USB device, you can always google your Vendor and Product ID along with the words, "linux" and "driver", and see if that helps. Using my webcam as an example you can see the first few hits indicate that folks are using the Syntek driver for this webcam.
The two other linux drivers that I've used with other webcams are hosted at the following websites. There's lots of good reading there, as well as other kinds of suggestions.
Linux kernel webcams Driver GSPCA / SPCA5xx
and the webcams compatible with this driver
Linux UVC driver and tools
and the webcams compatible with this driver
Good Luck..
Webcam driver for Ubuntu 7.10?
Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by Ederico, Jan 6, 2008.
