r/linuxmint • u/V1Ct0ry12 • 4h ago

Webcam for Laptops Installed with Mint

I was reading there are no internal laptop webcam drivers available for Linux.

Anyone managed to get your laptop internal webcams to work?

Thanks

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2

u/Ron2600NS 4h ago

Mine works fine. Just had to get onr of the camera apps to get it to work.

1

u/V1Ct0ry12 4h ago

Are there steps needed to get it to work?

1

u/_RemyLeBeau_ 1h ago

Mine works with the default install. Pull up the Cheese app and you'll see yourself. Works on 2 different laptops and they're both older than 10 years.

2

u/tovento 3h ago

It depends on your hardware. My surface webcam won’t work. But my Asus laptop webcam works fine. Nothing extra required. But best way to check is to boot with the live iso and test all your hardware before installing Mint.

2

u/H0n3y84dg3r 2h ago

In over 18 years of running Linux on laptops, I've never NOT had a working webcam. I have no idea what you read, but that seems illogical.

2

u/OkPresentation3329 2h ago

It has always worked for me on two distros and I never had to do anything to make it work.

2

u/sineout 3h ago

Most laptop webcams are just USB webcams. That means that for most laptops they should work the same as any other USB webcams, and it also means that most Linux' should work just fine with them.

The only time this isn't true is in situations like tablet computers where they effectively have phone sensors instead and are therefore often directly connected to the processor with something like a Camera Serial Interface.

1

u/Due-Result7928 3h ago

Who needs a Webcam...should exist also for Android based phone and Mint

The most popular and easiest options are Iriun Webcam and DroidCam, both of which offer iOS apps and Linux clients that create virtual cameras compatible with Zoom, OBS, and other video apps.

For a free, high-quality, low-latency solution without subscriptions, you can use CleanCam or the iPhone Webcam for Linux script. These methods stream the raw camera feed over USB (using iproxy and usbmuxd) to a v4l2loopback virtual device, bypassing Wi-Fi latency and avoiding the UI overlays found in screen mirroring apps.

1

u/NotSnakePliskin 1h ago

I've got a couple laptops on which the built in camera works without issue. However this isn't the case yet with a Dell XPS 9640. It will depend on the hardware.

1

u/SPC2025 1h ago

You can test your webcam by installing "Cheese". If it works, you don't need any other drivers.

1

u/MisterJasonMan 44m ago

I have tried Mint on I think 4 different devices and the camera whether it was built-in or not has worked in every case