Comments on: Arch Linux on a Sony Vaio SZ 6

By: hanjrah

hanjrah — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:38:17 +0000

i am using Sony VAIO CR 313-H and webcam wasnt working, i followed what you’ve written above in the webcam section and it just worked fine but the picture quality is very poor. It shows very less brightness and lines across the picture window.

and yes archlinux is indeed a wonderful OS, i am using it too!

thanks for this great tutorial!

By: Nepherte

Nepherte — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:50:23 +0000

I’m afraid I didn’t have to solve anything as I don’t really have a problem with wireless. The only problem I had is that, when I don’t enable the wireless switch before I boot and turn it on after the laptop has started, I have to remove the software block with rfkill.

Can you describe your problem in detail? Useful information can be extracted from some log files:
dmesg | grep iwl

I have seen a lot more threads on the arch forum recently about problems with the iwl driver. Perhaps your problem is related to one of those.

By: James

James — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:53:13 +0000

Hi Nepherte,

First things first. Thank you for your tutorial, nice one indeed.

I just installed arch on my SZ6, everything works fine.

However, there’s a problem with iwl3945. Wireless goes up and down continuously. I already experienced this issue with different *nix flavours.

I know ipw3945 works, however it’s not available in the repos now.

How did you fix it?

Thank you.

By: Nepherte

Nepherte — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:24:26 +0000

The error is not really that significant. It just means that the module wasn’t loaded yet. Hence you can’t remove it either.

Are you saying that the webcam works when you select it in emesene? (p.s. independently of wether the webcam works or not, there are still many issues with programs using webcams).

Maybe you should also look for help at ubuntuforums.org. There are many more users that can possibly help you out and they might have encountered your problem already.

By: Oscar

Oscar — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:54:27 +0000

O.k, I found the drivers at this site: http://linux.softpedia.com/progDownload/ricoh-webcam-r5u870-Download-30296.html There are two .deb files and I installed them both. Now the driver manager recognizes the driver, but neither cheese nor emesene recognize the webcam, although when I go to setting in emesene I can select the webcam and use it. It really puzzles me. What do you think I should do?

By: Oscar

Oscar — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 03:03:24 +0000

I run sudo rmmod uvcvideo and it says

ERROR: Module uvcvideo does not exist in /proc/modules

What does it mean? I’ll try running all the steps from the top, see what happens. Thank you very much for your help.

By: Nepherte

Nepherte — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:27:38 +0000

This is the model: Bus 001 Device 004: ID 05ca:1870 Ricoh Co., Ltd Webcam 1000. So it is recognized and the model number is correct. You can figure out the kernel version with the command “uname -m”.

Hmm. The only possible problem I can think of is that you forgot to reload the uvc video module. You can do so by executing “sudo rmmod uvcvideo && sudo modprobe uvcvideo”. If that doesn’t work, I’m running out of ideas. It may be possible there is some sort of problem with the r5u87x software itself.

By: Oscar

Oscar — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:00:36 +0000

I did that. The model I have is the 1870, here’s the output from lsusb:

oscar@oscar-laptop:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 05ca:1870 Ricoh Co., Ltd Webcam 1000
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 4971:cb08
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 046d:c016 Logitech, Inc. M-UV69a/HP M-UV96 Optical Wheel Mouse
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 03f0:171d Hewlett-Packard Wireless (Bluetooth + WLAN) Interface [Integrated Module]
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

Notice it’s the first device listed. I ran all commands with sudo. The exact model of my camera is r5u870, I think. How do I check that and the kernel version? It appears to be important. Thank you.

By: Nepherte

Nepherte — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:08:08 +0000

Are you sure the device is recognized by the operating system? Run lsusb and see if there’s an entry for it. (It’s usually looks something like [..] 05ca:183a Ricoh Co., Ltd [..]). It also lists the exact model.

Uploading firmware also requires having root privileges but it usually gives another error if you’re not running it as root. Prefix the command with sudo.

By: Oscar

Oscar — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:45:42 +0000

Hi there. I’m using another pc: HP Pavillion dv1635la and I have the 05ca-1870 webcam model and I’ve installed the loader but I keep getting the following error:

oscar@oscar-laptop:~/r5u87x/ucode$ ../loader -f r5u87x-05ca-1870.fw
r5u87x firmware loader v0.2

Searching for device…

Error: Failed to find any supported webcams.
oscar@oscar-laptop:~/r5u87x/ucode$ ls
r5u87x-05ca-1803.fw r5u87x-05ca-1834.fw r5u87x-05ca-183b.fw
r5u87x-05ca-1810.fw r5u87x-05ca-1835.fw r5u87x-05ca-183e.fw
r5u87x-05ca-1812.fw r5u87x-05ca-1836.fw r5u87x-05ca-1841.fw
r5u87x-05ca-1830.fw r5u87x-05ca-1837.fw r5u87x-05ca-1870_1.fw
r5u87x-05ca-1832.fw r5u87x-05ca-1839.fw r5u87x-05ca-1870.fw
r5u87x-05ca-1833.fw r5u87x-05ca-183a.fw
oscar@oscar-laptop:~/r5u87x/ucode$ ../loader -f r5u87x-05ca-1870.fw
r5u87x firmware loader v0.2

Searching for device…

Error: Failed to find any supported webcams.
oscar@oscar-laptop:~/r5u87x/ucode$ ../loader -f r5u87x-05ca-1870_1.fw
r5u87x firmware loader v0.2

Searching for device…

Error: Failed to find any supported webcams.

Note that I use both the 1870 and 1870_1 files. I’m not an expert, actually I’m kind of challenged in computer skills but still I love Ubuntu (using KarmicKoala 9.10) and I’d like to use my webcam on it. Any help will be highly appreciated. Thank you.

By: Nepherte

Nepherte — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:21:41 +0000

@Pepe I installed kopete today and I do have video from my webcam working in kopete, but the quality is very low.

By: paul

paul — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:05:28 +0000

I just got my webcam working for the very first time after two years of using Ubuntu without it!! Many thanks (Now on Karmic Koala 9.10)

By: Nepherte

Nepherte — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:40:28 +0000

I will see if I experience this problem with kopete later today. For now I can already tell you that the webcam works with both skype and cheese. You’ll hear back from me.

By: Pepe

Pepe — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:58:36 +0000

I have a Vaio FZ240E, which has a 05ca:183a ricoh webcam.
Using the uvcvideo driver and the appropriate firmware, the webcam is able to work at 640×480, but not at 320×240, which is required by kopete, and other programs.

I remember that the old r5u870 driver worked at 320×240 without a hiccup.

Do you also have this problem with your webcam?

By: Nepherte

Nepherte — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:26:49 +0000

Thank you for pointing out your solution. It is indeed a better and more elegant one. I’ve thought of it myself but never got to it as I basically use the intel card only. Nice article by the way.