Sony VAIO Camera Driver for Ubuntu

After installing Ubuntu and configuring it to look like windows, one thing that was really lacking was the web cam driver, I could not do video call from Gmail. This time with little easy, I found a link which help to install the driver easily.

First check which is your camera, by typing in the command lsusb, which shows something below.

Bus 006 Device 002: ID 045e:00a4 Microsoft Corp. 
Bus 006 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 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 044e:3012 Alps Electric Co., Ltd 
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 044e:3013 Alps Electric Co., Ltd 
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 044e:3010 Alps Electric Co., Ltd Bluetooth Adapter
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 044e:3011 Alps Electric Co., Ltd 
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05ca:1839 Ricoh Co., Ltd Visual Communication Camera VGP-VCC6 [R5U870]

The camera is from Ricoh Co. Ltd, VGP-VCC6[R5U870] 

The packages provided (both source and binary) include only the loader software and do not contain the microcode, whose copyright and license status is unclear. Instead, a simple shell script is provided that can download and install the microcode directly from the upstream repository.

Installation

========

1. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:r5u87x-loader/ppa

2. sudo apt-get update

3. sudo apt-get install r5u87x

4. sudo /usr/share/r5u87x/r5u87x-download-firmware.sh

(Step 1 only works on Ubuntu 9.10 and newer. On 8.04 you will need to add this PPA to your APT sources manually.)

Supported hardware

================

05ca:1803 Flybook V5

05ca:1810 HP Pavilion Webcam

05ca:1835 Sony Camera VGP-VCC5 (used on Sony Vaio SZ laptops)

05ca:1836 Sony Camera VGP-VCC4 (used on Sony Vaio FE laptops)

05ca:1837 Sony Camera VGP-VCC4 (used on Sony Vaio FZ laptops)

05ca:1839 Sony Camera VGP-VCC6 (used on Sony Vaio CR laptops)

05ca:183a Sony Camera VGP-VCC7 (used on Sony Vaio SZ and TZ11 laptops)

05ca:183b Sony Camera VGP-VCC8 (used on Sony Vaio FZ laptops)

05ca:183e Sony Camera VGP-VCC9 (used on Sony Vaio FZ laptops)

Hope this helps !

Windows 7, With All Drivers on Sony VAIO CR313H

Recently I have upgraded from the so called the slower version of windows (Windows Vista) to windows 7, the latest and the faster one. Everything looked nice, until I realize that my webcam is not working when I try to use Google talk on Gmail for video call. I was bit worried, thought it is not so difficult to fix it, as I knew camera driver is missing, and I did some google-ing and found that it’s not so easy to get your camera working on the laptop, mostly because it is a 2 year old laptop and Sony Vaio’s official site does not give any drivers and nowhere else also the exact drivers are available.

 

Now I did worry a bit more, but without losing hope I did some more research on the internet and found that there is driver for the web camera which many people have claimed to work on VAIO laptops. I did give a try, and amazing! It’s working!! Here is a link to download the same if you are having similar problems.

 

I was wondering, if other things on my laptops are working fine, I found that the display and the graphics drivers are missing, and Bluetooth and WLAN switch setting is missing, SD Card Reader is not working, None of the function keys are working, especially the brightness control keys, and Fn+F7 (Dual Mode + Monitor Extension). This is now a serious problem, I thought I must fix this. I called up one of my friend who works for Sony; he was on his way back to native for his sister’s engagement, so wasn’t so useful.

 

I did more search on the internet to find the display driver for my Intel graphics accelerator x3100, and after installing that the graphics did flicker few times, but worked wonders and I could see all the options I was able to see when Vista was there, I was happy, this was the first success. Here is a link if you want to download the same driver for your CR313H laptop, or with the same Intel graphics accelerator.

 

Later for the others, I started searching to make function keys working, and while searching, I found a forum on windows 7, where things which are solved are marked as SOLVED, which helped find the thread easily, and I found memory card driver, you can download it here.

 

I also got a thread, where someone had installed all the utilities needed for the functions keys to work properly. You have to download and Install the following Utilities from the SONY VAIO ftp link ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/PUB/VAIO/ORIGINAL/ . And Note that all the below needs to be installed in the same order for it to work properly. Download the LATEST version available for each of them and install.

1. Sony Firmware Extension Parser (SFEP) Driver
2. Sony Shared Library
3. Setting Utility Series
4. Vaio Control Center (if you want it)
5. Vaio event service

This makes all the features on my SONY VAIO laptop work. If you have any problems, feel free to write to me.