WebCam is not recognized on my Samsung 300v5a-s19

Question

I have Samsung 300v5a-s19ru laptop, and its WebCam is not recognized. I tried to follow this manual, but it doesn't work for me.

1. When I'm trying to start Cheese, it doesn't see any WebCam at all. Its Output:

   ** (cheese:8161): WARNING **: cheese-main.vala:251: Error: No device found
   
      (cheese:8161): cheese-CRITICAL **: cheese_camera_device_get_device_node: assertion CHEESE_IS_CAMERA_DEVICE (device)' failed
   
      (cheese:8161): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_new_string: assertion string != NULL' failed
   
      (cheese:8161): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_settings_schema_key_type_check: assertion value != NULL' failed
   
      (cheese:8161): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_get_type_string: assertion value != NULL' failed
   
      (cheese:8161): GLib-GIO-CRITICAL **: g_settings_set_value: key 'camera' in 'org.gnome.Cheese' expects type 's', but a GVariant of type '(null)' was given
   
   ** (cheese:8161): CRITICAL **: cheese_preferences_dialog_setup_resolutions_for_device: assertion device != NULL' failed
   

2. I tried install Ov51x, but as I can understand it doesn't work on linux kernel > 3.0. Trying to follow this, item 2.4 fails:

   % make

   make: *** No targets. Stop.

   In this answer on askubuntu it's written, that Ov51x works on < 2.6 kernels only

3. In Samsung Tech Support they said that drivers for Linux does not exist, but they said also, that in my laptop WebCam Sunplus Tech SCB-1100N is used.

What do I do to make it work? What driver or module should I use?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The solution was so simple and close

The issue was that the webcam is switched off at boot time with the Samsung Tools.

I accidentally discovered that in the settings of the Samsung Tools webcam toggle is set to "Last Status", which essentially means "Disabled", as the camera was never turned on before. I assign a shortcut key [Fn] + [F4] to turn on/off the camera. And now the camera switches on and off, and even works.

I apologize for making this stupid question.