3

this is a known issue with *ubuntu and Dell laptops, there are hundreds of hits to this question; the webcam is simply not recognized by the system and one needs to add a ppa repo (this one: ppa:oem-solutions-engineers/oem-projects-meta) and stuff is sort of solved (alternatively, the solution is simlar and asks to add libcamhal).

I solved the problem before on my Dell, that way.

But: now that I updated to 24.04 it is of course no more, since that ppa repo does not work with 24.04.

Solutions?

I thought of

  • forcing Kubuntu to accept the old (22.04) version of that repo. But I fail. Any hint on how to do this?
  • waiting for the 24.04 repo to be available... but that might be a long wait and I need my webcam now.

Thanks!

I add here some diagnostics as asked in the comments (thanks).

lsb_release -a

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Release:        24.04
Codename:       noble

Also, the webcam is now seen by the system (I added the ipu6 module to the kernel and libcamhal):

v4l2-ctl --list-devices
Intel MIPI Camera (platform:v4l2loopback-000):
        /dev/video0

But the camera seems to be UNCLAIMED

sudo lshw -C multimedia
  *-multimedia:0 UNCLAIMED  
       description: Multimedia controller
       product: Intel Corporation
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 5
       bus info: pci@0000:00:05.0
       version: 00
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pciexpress pm cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: iomemory:620-61f memory:628e000000-628effffff
PaoloCrosetto
  • 159

2 Answers2

2

The problem has been solved as of July 11th, 2024: Ubuntu posted an updated Kernel that fixed the problem for the 24.04 issue.

In particular, the update involved the packages

linux-modules-6.8.0-1007-oem:amd64 (6.8.0-1007.7, automatic), linux-modules-ipu6-oem-24.04a:amd64 (6.8.0-1007.7), linux-modules-ipu6-6.8.0-1007-oem:amd64 (6.8.0-1007.7, automatic), linux-image-6.8.0-1007-oem:amd64 (6.8.0-1007.7, automatic)

PaoloCrosetto
  • 159
1

The answer here worked for me on Dell Precision 5690.

As in that answer, I did:

sudo apt install linux-modules-ipu6-generic
sudo apt install ubuntu-oem-keyring # necessary for the following repository
sudo add-apt-repository deb http://dell.archive.canonical.com/ noble somerville
sudo apt install libcamhal0

then restarted my machine and the webcam works now. Although the video quality is pretty bad (when you move its very laggy and leaves a trail and has what looks like heavy compression effects). Looking at reviews like this one, it should be quite good quality.

Garrett
  • 730