Webcam not working on Ubuntu

 When it comes to OS upgrade, I'm not the kind of guy who get excited very easily. So, on my main machine which runs on Ubuntu, I tend to install always a LTS versions, which is updated for five years.

The downside is that every year or two, it can happen that some software stops working due to some driver becoming incompatible with a new version of that software, as it happened few days ago with Cheese, the Ubuntu standard webcam application. Also, any other software dependent on that particular driver, stopped functioning.

Luckily, I soon found an easy fix.

After the usual googling, I discovered this project called Linux UVC, which provides kernel support for UVC devices.

To install the webcam drivers, it's enough to install the shared library like this:


sudo apt update

sudo apt install libucv0


To install the development file, instead:


sudo apt update

sudo apt install libucv-dev

 

If you like to build your software from source, here there is their github repository.

Stop Skype from starting when booting Ubuntu

If you are a little like me and you like to have everything under control on your PC, you probably don't like to see Skype starting every time you start your computer. Maybe you have tried to stop this from happening by going to start-up application only to realize that Skype isn't there.

If you have installed Skype from Ubuntu Software, you are about to solve your problem.

Open a terminal (cntr+alt+t) end enter the following command:

cd snap/skype/176/.config/autostart

If you check in this directory there should be only one file named skypeforlinux.desktop. If this is correct enter the next command:

cp skypeforlinux.desktop skypeforlinux.desktop.backup

Now you can remove the original file with this command

rm skypeforlinux.desktop

Reboot, and you will not see Skype bothering you again.

FINAL NOTE

The number 176 inside the path in the first command refers to the version of Skype and might be different, depending on your installation.