How do I make my laptop chose another camera on mint

S. Chapelin · 10-22-2020, 08:06 AM

In these times of pandemic, I have an old logitech webcam that I plug into my laptop loaded with mint.
How do I make my laptop use my logitech webcam instead of the built-in webcam it came with?

TB0ne · 10-22-2020, 08:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by S. Chapelin

In these times of pandemic, I have an old logitech webcam that I plug into my laptop loaded with mint. How do I make my laptop use my logitech webcam instead of the built-in webcam it came with?

You go into whatever piece of software you're using, and select it.

Not much more we can tell you, since you don't tell us what kind of camera, version of Mint, or what software you're using.

pwnrz · 10-22-2020, 08:22 AM

I'd love to help, but I need some more info on what app & what version of Mint you're running. Without that info, I can assume you can change the camera in the software, It's a general feature on most Camera apps.

-Pwnrz

sgosnell · 10-22-2020, 09:10 AM

The computer doesn't use the camera, or whatever else is connected, the software does. Look in the settings of the program you're running, and you should find a way to select the camera and microphone. Without knowing what software you're using, it's not possible to be more specific.

S. Chapelin · 10-23-2020, 04:44 AM

I am on gmail and I want to do teleconferencing with hangouts.
Hangouts doesn't detect my usb camera.
Btw, neither does Cheese.

$ uname -ao
Linux gilles-Aspire-E5-571 5.0.0-32-generic #34~18.04.2-Ubuntu SMP Thu Oct 10 10:36:02 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

sgosnell · 10-23-2020, 10:13 AM

In that case, try a different camera. Yours might be broken. Or try the camera on a different computer and see if it works there. If you have only one camera and one computer, you might have to spend some money, but webcams aren't that expensive.

TB0ne · 10-24-2020, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgosnell

In that case, try a different camera. Yours might be broken. Or try the camera on a different computer and see if it works there. If you have only one camera and one computer, you might have to spend some money, but webcams aren't that expensive.

Agreed; if cheese doesn't pick the camera up it's either dead or so old it's unsupported. Since a new one is about $20-30, I'd not spend much time diagnosing it.

headturner · 10-25-2020, 03:04 AM

Sometimes the problem is in the USB port. Try another port before calling the camera dead.

business_kid · 10-30-2020, 05:44 AM

A lot of cameras use the uvcvideo module these days. If the internal camera is picked up first, you may have issues as uvcvideo only loads one copy afaik. Can you nobble/disable/unconfigure/exclude that built-in camera from hardware detection? ~Is it in the BIOS perchance?

beachboy2 · 10-30-2020, 10:41 AM

S. Chapelin,

Diconnect the Logitech webcam, open a Terminal and find the ID of your internal webcam with this command:

Code:

 lsusb

A similar thread here:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=304746
To turn the camera off every time the computer is booted, you also need to add a line to cron scheduler.

Webcam disabling in Linux:
http://karlcode.owtelse.com/blog/201...orts-on-linux/

ofbarea · 10-30-2020, 10:54 AM

An small and ease to use application to test the web cam is “cheese”.
I have used it successfully on Ubuntu and Void Linux.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Cheese

TB0ne · 10-30-2020, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ofbarea

An small and ease to use application to test the web cam is “cheese”.
I have used it successfully on Ubuntu and Void Linux.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Cheese

Right...that application has already been suggested to the OP, and they stated it didn't work.