Do you want to enable the camera in Ubuntu Linux but don’t know how to do it? If your answer is YES then you are in the right place.
Many users use the Ubuntu operating system to do their work but due to a lack of settings options, it is hard to operate different things in Ubuntu especially when you don’t have the proper knowledge.
Currently, we have seen that many Ubuntu users having a hard time enabling the camera.
Keep that in mind we have decided to write this article and help those users enable and disable the camera in Ubuntu.
If the Ubuntu device has a camera then you can make video calls, recordings, and also take pictures.
In addition to this users can rotate, apply background effects, do auto framing, and more depending on the capability of the camera.
Fortunately, Ubuntu by default has all the drivers and files to make the camera work.
If additional drivers are needed you will be prompted to install them.
However, if you have administrator or root permission then you can easily enable and disable the camera on Ubuntu.
Below we have mentioned step-by-step instructions to enable and disable the camera in the Ubuntu Linux.
So, without any further ado let’s get started:
How to Enable the Camera In Ubuntu
As I described above, due to the lack of settings options in the Ubuntu settings app you need to use the command line to enable and disable the camera in Ubuntu.
If you want to enable the camera in Ubuntu then you can do it by using the steps written below:
Step 1: Find the Camera driver module
Most of the camera drivers in the recent version of Ubuntu are UVC compliant and supported by the generic uvcvideo kernel driver module.
First, you need to find which version of the driver modules are used in your Ubuntu machine to run the camera.
To do so open the Command Line and run the following command:
sudo lsmod | grep 'uvcvideo'
If the command runs properly then you will get the results and see the module of the camera driver.
If you don’t get any results that means Ubuntu did not identify the camera or driver is not installed. It also means a different camera driver is installed.
In that case, you will click on the following links to get more information about drivers:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/media/gspca-cardlist.html
https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Webcam_devices
Step 2: Remove camera drivers from Ubuntu
You can use a system driver from Ubuntu using the modprobe command.
Run the command below to remove the camera driver:
Replace the uvcvideo with the other name of the driver identified on your system.
If the camera is in use then you will see the error message. In that case, you need to close the app using the camera and re-run the command.
To permanently remove the driver, run the following command:
echo 'blacklist uvcvideo' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
this will permanently block the driver configuration file at “/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf”.
Once you run this command app is not able to see your camera.
Step 3: Enable the camera in Ubuntu Linux
To remove the line from the blocklist to re-enable the camera driver in Ubuntu. Run the following command:
sudo modprobe uvcvideo
That’s it this is how you can enable the camera in Ubuntu.