On 03/06/2014 03:56 PM, Rolf Turner issued this missive:
On 07/03/14 11:58, Rick Stevens wrote:
> On 03/06/2014 01:54 PM, Rolf Turner issued this missive:
>>
>> I have a Toshiba Satellite L850 laptop. Recently I attempted to make
>> use of "Google Hangouts" for communicating with some colleagues. When
I
>> attempted to start a "video hangout" I was informed that the
"device"
>> was not working and that I appeared *not* to have a camera. (After some
>> appropriate clicking I got a message to the effect "Looks like your
>> camera isn't working properly.")
>>
>> I had never tried to do anything involving camera facilities before (I'm
>> not usually that sort of bear) but I had just assumed that there was a
>> camera in the machine. There *is* a lens in the lid, just above the
>> screen. Furthermore, according to Toshiba's website, this laptop has a 1
>> megapixel webcam built in.
>>
>> So: How can I get the damned thing to "work properly"? Is there
>> something I need to do to switch it on? Does it need "drivers"
>> installed? If so, do there exist drivers that will work under Linux,
>> specifically under Fedora 17?
>>
>> Please try not to be *too* cryptic in your responses! There are many
>> lacunae in my knowledge and many acronyms and pieces of jargon
>> bewilder me!
>>
>> Thanks for any help and advice.
>
> Most laptop cameras are internally attached to one of the USB buses
> in your machine, so as the root user you could try an "lsusb" and see
> if your camera appears in that list. On my Dell:
>
> [root@golem4 ~]# lsusb
> Bus 002 Device 004: ID 8087:07d9 Intel Corp.
> Bus 002 Device 003: ID 8086:0189 Intel Corp.
> Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
> Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
> Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1bcf:2980 Sunplus Innovation Technology Inc.
> Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
> Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
>
> The "Sunplus" item is my webcam.
>
> See if you have an application called "Cheese" on your desktop. On
> XFCE, it's "Applications Menu->Multimedia->Cheese". That's a
fairly
> lightweight camera application and will tell you if the camera is
> working or not. If it is working, then there may be an issue with
> Hangouts working with your machine (although it _should_ just use the
> /dev/video0 device by default).
When I do "sudo lsusb" I get:
> Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
> Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
> Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
> Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
> Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0bda:8189 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B
> Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps Network Adapter
No sign of anything camera-like as far as I can see.
There is no "Multimedia" item under my "Applications" tab and no sign
of
"Cheese" anywhere that I can find in the menus. However there are some
signs of "Cheese" on the system (as revealed by "locate Cheese". So
I
tried just starting from the command line by simply typing "cheese", and
up popped a window, all black, with "No device found" in white lettering
in the centre. So it's not a Hangouts (or Skype, which I have also
tried) issue.
I seem to up against a brick wall here, unless someone can come up with
some other idea(s).
Looking around on the web, it's possible that the camera was disabled
in the BIOS of your machine. You might try booting up in the BIOS first
and digging around in there to see if it's disabled.
If it was disabled and you enabled it, retry the "lsusb" command and
cheese (you found the right app). You didn't say which desktop you're
using, but I'd imagine the cheese app is buried somewhere in your menus
(I use XFCE since Gnome3 became such a right pain).
If it wasn't disabled, it may be buried under one of the USB hubs. Try
"lsusb -v" and see if it's hidden in there somewhere. It may not show
up as a name you are familiar with if it's not listed with the USB
manufacturers (I'd never heard of Sunplus).
You can also try "lspci" to see if it's on the native PCI bus rather
than USB (remote possibility). You could also try "lshw | grep -i cam"
and see if it shows up there. My guess is that it's disabled in the
BIOS.
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital ricks(a)alldigital.com -
- AIM/Skype: therps2 ICQ: 22643734 Yahoo: origrps2 -
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- -- Glenn Marcus (via
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