newkind
eri 
hacker: i am spying on you through your webcam
linux user: omg you got it working?
linux user: omg you got it working?
HowToPhil@eri I have never had a webcam that didn't work in Linux
@howtophil it really depends. almost all USB webcams tend to work without issues on account of USB having a standard for it, but built-in cameras on devices are a crapshoot if they aren't connected over USB internally.
@eri Like I said, my experience has never been that one didn't work, laptop inbuilt, or USB, or serial cable... Seems it must be a rare occurrence to me, but I also just might be the luckiest person for the last ~30 years
🇳🇿 
💉*10 Roger@howtophil @eri mine all work. I have laptops w builtin cams, monitors and USB cameras. All working. We run variants of Ubuntu (xubuntu and lubuntu). I don't recall having to do anything special. Just lucky too I guess.
Moos-a-dee 🫎@rogerparkinson @howtophil @eri
The one thing that doesn't work on my laptop in Linux is the built in webcam. 🙈
The one thing that doesn't work on my laptop in Linux is the built in webcam. 🙈
@Moosader @rogerparkinson @eri I have a netbook with an on/off button for the webcam and sometimes have to turn it on... I do not know if this is your problem
CyCC: @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
Not such a bad thing, all things considered! A lady working at the therapy place told me the other day "We're doing therapy sessions over Zoom, now! ^_^" and after I despaired for the future of humanity, I told her "Well gee sorry, but I don't even have a webcam."
Her response: "Just use your laptop's webcam."
Me, thinking myself clever: I didn't buy a laptop with a webcam.
Her: Just check, I'm sure it's there.
Me, looking at all laptops for purchase anywhere, without exception every single one of them with a camera that stares at you when you open it like Hal 9000:
Not such a bad thing, all things considered! A lady working at the therapy place told me the other day "We're doing therapy sessions over Zoom, now! ^_^" and after I despaired for the future of humanity, I told her "Well gee sorry, but I don't even have a webcam."
Her response: "Just use your laptop's webcam."
Me, thinking myself clever: I didn't buy a laptop with a webcam.
Her: Just check, I'm sure it's there.
Me, looking at all laptops for purchase anywhere, without exception every single one of them with a camera that stares at you when you open it like Hal 9000:
@[email protected] @Moosader @rogerparkinson @howtophil oh, our laptop has a physical slider that can go in front of the webcam. it's nice.
Yeah, and it's easy to "fix" with a bit of tape. Still, the fact that you c-a-n-n-o-t buy a laptop without a webcam anymore is crazy.
CC: @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
CC: @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
@cy @eri @howtophil @Moosader you can buy neat little sliders that stick in place over the Webcam. I can't find the link just now but I got mine from aliexpress. A pack of ~10 for cheap.
Janne Moren@howtophil @eri
I've encountered a couple that didn't work at all; but several that would get you a basic picture, but not support many of the more advanced features (high-res or high framerates, adjustable focus and so on).
I've encountered a couple that didn't work at all; but several that would get you a basic picture, but not support many of the more advanced features (high-res or high framerates, adjustable focus and so on).
Jeremy List@howtophil @eri a lot of built-in ones are internal USB.
DrYak@howtophil Indeed, you're insanely lucky:
- Early 2000s, UVC didn't exist as a standard yet and each webcam USB module vendor had their own weird protocol, further tweaked down by the final product maker. We had to hunt drivers (I was semi-lucky that my Logitech did work as-is after compiling spca5xx)
...
- Early 2000s, UVC didn't exist as a standard yet and each webcam USB module vendor had their own weird protocol, further tweaked down by the final product maker. We had to hunt drivers (I was semi-lucky that my Logitech did work as-is after compiling spca5xx)
...
@howtophil
...
- Nowadays embed camera on ARM device (which aren't USB, but directly talk to some video interface of the SoC like CSI, and are controlled by something like I2C) are a mess. (Again semi-lucky: by the time I needed to use the one on my Linux phone, the community had figured out the kernel drivers, libcamera did support it, and there was an app using this library)
...
- Nowadays embed camera on ARM device (which aren't USB, but directly talk to some video interface of the SoC like CSI, and are controlled by something like I2C) are a mess. (Again semi-lucky: by the time I needed to use the one on my Linux phone, the community had figured out the kernel drivers, libcamera did support it, and there was an app using this library)
@dryak I've been using Linux since 96/97... I was there in the early 2000s too ;)
@howtophil Haha, I started roughly at the same time as you. I guess Microsoft managed to get quite a lot of users pissed off with Win95 and running to better OSes.
I guess you therefor also remember the "recompile your own I2C drivers to get the TV out working on your GFX card" era.
@dryak Vaguely, but I think I only wanted that once... I had some TV-in cards that "just worked" though... they are probably in a plastic bin someplace
Ángela Stella MatutinaWhy would they use anything else? I mean, twenty-odd years ago it could have been reasonable , USB wasn't ready for prime time, but today it smacks of perversity.
llewelly@eri @howtophil
real reason webcam doesn't work under linux is because the linux user
wrote cron job which deletes device every 30s
put tape over camera
scratched out traces on the motherboard
removed camera and repurposed it to watch the bird
Poll ended at .
Louis [OLD ACCOUNT]@llewelly @eri @howtophil that reminds me of a video call I had with a client months ago. I invited her in a talk room on my Nextcloud instance. She couldn't get her webcam to work. I feel embarassed and after 5 minutes trying to make it work, I send her another link using another video call solution. Same issue. We decide to chat anyway and after 1 hour, when we're just about to finish she realizes she had some tape on it...
🐧DaveNull🐧 ☣️pResident Evil☣@llewelly It lacks one answer "It works perfectly fine but I fail to see why I need to waste bandwidth by sending and receiving useless video traffic from webcams during remote meetings. So I actually use the built-in webcam as a codebar scanner on my library card to avoid typing my identifier manually"
Corvus@llewelly @eri @howtophil
Instead of tape I use the little round bandaids. It always looks like my laptop has a boo-boo.
Instead of tape I use the little round bandaids. It always looks like my laptop has a boo-boo.
vxo@eri @howtophil yeah or they have weird... side channel stuff... where something like i2c / smbus magicgrams have to be passed to it to configure it and turn it on
schrotthaufen@eri @howtophil Indeed. E.g. current Dell Latitudes use these new Intel webcams that do their own thing, and last time I checked there wasn’t a Linux driver, yet.
Lee@eri @howtophil Thank you for the info, it seems the most probable cause of the confusion!
Elio Campitelli@howtophil @eri I'm currently sitting in an office with at least 2 laptops with ubuntu without a working webcam.
Sebastian Krzyszkowiak@howtophil @eliocamp @eri Non-working laptop webcams is a recent phenomenon, as these cams started to resemble smartphone cameras more than USB webcams. Support is arriving though, it just takes some time for the whole stack to adapt.
@dos @howtophil @eri Indeed it's recent. My camera was working a few months ago and the some random update broke it.
Christof Schöch 🇪🇺Definitely funny, gave me a good chuckle!
But also not really my experience, at least for built-in webcams. External, USB-connected webcams are a different story, I've had occasional troubles with them as well.
António Domingues@eliocamp @howtophil @eri can relate. Though I only had issues with a single machine: ThinkPad X1. In built camera didn't work. All my other machines had functioning webcams.
Morten@eliocamp @howtophil @eri "Yeah, sorry boss, I'm attending meetings without video. It's a Linux thing"
@drgroftehauge @eliocamp @eri Oh, I've said that because I don't want to be on video for bullshit meetings.
James Henstridge@howtophil @eri My ThinkPad has two cameras: a regular one and an IR one.
The IR one misbehaves under Linux: it presents as a standard UVC camera, but lies about it's pixel format. It claims to be YUYV, but seems to deliver packed 10-bit greyscale.
I suspect this was intended to let them use the standard Windows kernel driver and then decode image frames in user space.
Louis Dureuil@howtophil
Me neither but the vibes are right. I did have a set of speakers that were stuck with two settings: muted or deafening.
Fixing that required opening a program to choose to manually disconnect some pins or something 😓
Bloodaxe
viq@howtophil @eri I've had webcams that totally destroyed USB stack of the dock they were connected to, requiring quite some shenanigans to restart the stack to get *any* device working on it without a reboot 🤣
And, yes, sometimes they worked 😂
And, yes, sometimes they worked 😂
Sven Geggus@howtophil @eri Less off a problem since they all are basically just UVC (USB Video Class) devices. This has been very different before UVC has been widely adopted about 20 years ago :)
Paolo Redaelli@howtophil
I guess it was a joke 🤪
To be truly honest several years ago incompatible webcam were rather common, but I'm speaking of more than twenty years ago… 😅
@eri
I guess it was a joke 🤪
To be truly honest several years ago incompatible webcam were rather common, but I'm speaking of more than twenty years ago… 😅
@eri
Polly Kraisus@howtophil @eri same but still funny
saucerlost@eri
A hacker got in through my samba share, but then they inexplicably disappeared, never to be seen again
...I hope they're alright
Grace Vulpes Alopex (973748)I've literally never had problems with getting my webcam working on Linux
Tay@eri me, knowing full well that my webcam has a faulty cable and any application accessing it will irrevocably freeze as soon as any wind blows on it
Sco 
@eri ooooouuuch
Inderix@eri for me it was the other way around
the UVC driver for my laptop would bluescreen the whole laptop without a manual update on Windows
linux i didn't even think about it, it just works™️
the UVC driver for my laptop would bluescreen the whole laptop without a manual update on Windows
linux i didn't even think about it, it just works™️
licenced priestess@eri if it were true, they would make more money making Linux drivers for Intel shit (it's always the Intel camera thing, isn't it?)
Neville Park@eri "please send the patch to the kernel mailing list"
Ω 🌍 Gus Posey
Tom Forsyth@eri The International Space Station runs on Linux. That's why In space, no one can hear you scream.
Pixel Dunn@TomF that's why i'm on earth and 'm gonna stay on earth even if it'd mean that i'll die… :)
and yeah for some time linux frustrates me again and i think i'll move back to windoze…
and yeah for some time linux frustrates me again and i think i'll move back to windoze…
Poul-Henning KampFreeBSD user: Yeah, as if...
Farce Majeure
Robert Petersen 
ltning
Ertain
Evan Prodromou