how to activate laptop integrated webcam dell inspiron 1525

RajahBrooke · 10-31-2010, 02:11 PM

Hi,

I've been using slackware64 13.1 ever since it came out on my Dell Inspiron 1525, and I haven't really had any problems with my webcam in that time. However, last time I tried to use skype - I noticed that it couldn't detect it.

In kinfocenter, my webcam is picked up (OmniVision Technologies). The only time I've had a similar problem in the past is when I used the "Compact" option in lilo.conf, and the webcam wouldn't turn on. Just removing the option solved the problem.

Since I don't know what steps caused this to happen, I'm not sure where to start fixing it - any suggestions of output I could post here to get started?

tuxrules · 10-31-2010, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RajahBrooke

Hi,

I've been using slackware64 13.1 ever since it came out on my Dell Inspiron 1525, and I haven't really had any problems with my webcam in that time. However, last time I tried to use skype - I noticed that it couldn't detect it.

In kinfocenter, my webcam is picked up (OmniVision Technologies). The only time I've had a similar problem in the past is when I used the "Compact" option in lilo.conf, and the webcam wouldn't turn on. Just removing the option solved the problem.

Since I don't know what steps caused this to happen, I'm not sure where to start fixing it - any suggestions of output I could post here to get started?

Seems like your brand of webcam works with in-kernel uvcvideo driver. Use lsmod to see if you have the driver loaded. Use modprobe to load the module.

Code:

lsmod | grep uvcvideo

Code:

modprobe uvcvideo

RajahBrooke · 10-31-2010, 08:38 PM

Thanks for the reply.

uvcvideo appears to be already loaded based on the output of "lsmod|grep uvcvideo"

Code:

uvcvideo               60908  0 
videodev               37815  1 uvcvideo
v4l1_compat            15120  2 uvcvideo,videodev

I ran "modprobe uvcvideo" just in case, but it made no difference.

To clarify, the only application I have that uses the webcam is Skype - I'm running the Dynamic version, which I run by cd-ing into the directory where it is saved and running

Code:

./skype &&

Until recently, this has caused me no trouble at all, but now when I go into options, Skype doesn't recognise that I have a webcam. I realise that since it isn't a fully integrated package, I have to accept a certain amount of fuss, but this is a new problem, so I'm a little confused.

[edit]

I've managed a fix, by running the following as root:

Code:

modprobe -r uvcvideo && modprobe uvcvideo

Which caused my webcam to spring back to life. As far as I am aware, when I reboot my PC, the webcam does come on - it's hard to tell, since thanks to Slackware's ridiculous stability, it has been a while since this has happened :P

I think what is happening is that when I use "pm-suspend" to put my laptop to sleep, it deactivates the webcam. Is this a problem others have had? Does anyone know how this could be avoided?