Member Avatar for rijvana

hi frdz..

i brought one web camera(enet PC camera) for last year. That time i used windows it worked well in windows environment. now i m using linux(mandriva).. i want use tat camera again.. i dont hav any drivers related 2 tat camera.. wat i do now?.. plz frdz tell me some suggestion 2 solve tis prob..

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Dani AI

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A short, practical checklist to add to 's follow-up and 's comments: in this thread the enet PC camera ultimately worked without extra drivers. For readers who hit trouble later, the steps below quickly show whether the camera is seen by the kernel, whether a video device node exists, and how to test capture and fix common permission/module issues.

Run these checks after plugging the camera in (each command is independent):

# check kernel messages right after plugging in
dmesg | tail -n 30

# list USB devices and find the camera's vendor:product id
lsusb

# list video device nodes
ls -l /dev/video*

# check/load the kernel module most webcams use
lsmod | grep uvcvideo || sudo modprobe uvcvideo

# list V4L2 devices (needs v4l-utils)
v4l2-ctl --list-devices

# quick capture test (ffmpeg/fswebcam/cheese are common helpers)
ffmpeg -f v4l2 -i /dev/video0 -frames 1 snapshot.jpg

If a device node like /dev/video0 exists but applications fail, installing v4l-utils and a simple viewer (cheese or guvcview) helps isolate whether the problem is app-level. If permission is the issue, add the account to the video group (sudo usermod -aG video $USER) and re-login. If no device appears in dmesg or lsusb, note the vendor:product ID and try a newer kernel or loadable module; very old cameras sometimes lack Linux support.

Additional notes: some webcams expose a separate microphone (check ALSA/PulseAudio settings), multiple cameras map to /dev/video0..N, and distro package names vary—use the distribution's package tool to install v4l-utils/cheese/ffmpeg. These steps complement 's pointer and explain fast, repeatable diagnostic actions for anyone who finds this thread later.

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Member Avatar for rijvana

sorry frdz.. just before i checked webcam again.. its working without any driver..

Member Avatar for JasonHippy

Just for future reference, webcams can be a bit hit and miss on Linux.

If your webcam is compatible with the UVC specification (USB Video device Class) then it is guaranteed to work as Linux has UVC drivers implemented.
Although admittedly this could vary from distro to distro. But AFAIK all of the major distros include the UVC drivers!

Take a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_video_device_class
and:
http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/

Usually only very old webcams are incompatible with UVC and so will most likely only work under Windows unless somebody in the Linux community has created/reverse engineered drivers.

But most webcams from recent years should be UVC compliant. Apparently any webcams that are 'Certified for Windows Vista' will be UVC compliant and so should work properly on Linux using the Linux UVC drivers.

Member Avatar for rijvana

Thanks jason.. my webcamera has USB drive.. it s working now..

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