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I want to disable the internal Microphone on my laptop and the internal Webcam completely that they're no longer selectable, and no longer available?

I will only use my external Webcam, and my external (USB) headset.

The internal audio should still be available for playback.

Takkat
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lupopa
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4 Answers4

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Blacklist drivers

In both cases kernel drivers may be loaded for both, the internal sound card, and the webcam to be recognized by Ubuntu. We can find out which drivers are loaded by the following command in a terminal:

lsmod

From this list we can see which of these kernel modules may be responsible for our (specific) hardware (e.g. an Intel sound card may need the snd_hda_intel module).

Blacklisting these kernel module will stop this device from being recognized by your system. To do so we edit the file /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf as root to add the following line:

blacklist <name_of_module>

See also: How can I control which sound card Ubuntu uses for playback?

In case we still need the internal audio card for playback audio we can just mute the input microphone source, e.g by running alsamixer in a terminal.

Community
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Takkat
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  • Sorry, I don't understand, my English is bad, I'm German User. I will only deactivate internal Mic and internal Webcam, but not internal Audio (Playback) – lupopa Jun 13 '12 at 15:52
  • Is anyone here who can really help? I want the mic "completely" off, it is NOT to see more. I want to disable the internal webcam "completely", she is no longer visible. Audio will continue to run – lupopa Jun 29 '12 at 07:10
  • @lupopa: I pushed your question up with an edit. If there still is no other solution you may consider offering a bounty to get more attention. – Takkat Jun 29 '12 at 07:31
  • Here my Hardware on pastebin: http://pastebin.com/qwvd9R8z can anyone help me please? – lupopa Jul 12 '12 at 15:37
  • Push ... i have no results found :( – lupopa Oct 15 '12 at 10:01
  • @lupopa: I put a bounty on your question. Hope it helps. – Takkat Oct 15 '12 at 10:46
  • @lupopa: Falls du einen Abschnitt nicht verstehst, kann ich dir den auch gerne übersetzen. (offer for translation) – cauon Oct 15 '12 at 10:59
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    For the webcam, blacklist the "webcamstudio" driver as above. Your microphone will not have a separate driver that can be blacklisted, you must mute it using alsamixer as above. – ImaginaryRobots Oct 15 '12 at 18:08
  • @ImaginaryRobots: care to write an answer? – Takkat Oct 21 '12 at 11:49
8

Blacklist the webcam driver and mute the Internal Mic from Alsamixer.

According to the informations you gave here, open a terminal and execute this command

Disable WebCam

echo 'blacklist webcamstudio' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

Mute the microphone

To mute the internal microphone use the alsamixer.

Open a terminal and give this command 

alsamixer

Navigate with arrow keys <--> and find the internal or mic channel and then press the M key on your keyboard to disable - mute [MM] the microphone. Esc to exit

enter image description here

NickTux
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  • Hi, the Webcamstudio is a Program like "manycam in windows" and install own webcamdriver to use more Cam's, text, animationen... My Problem: I'll disable Bus 002 Device 005: ID 064e:a219 Suyin Corp. 1.3M WebCam (notebook emachines E730, Acer sub-brand), but not my USB Cam. all Cam's using uvcvideo driver from Linux :( – lupopa Nov 19 '12 at 08:40
  • This didn't work for me. At first it appeared to have worked, but after restart, the setting became `0M` (green `0`, grey `M`) and pressing `M` just toggles it between that and `M0`. Whichever way around it goes, the internal microphone is still active and unmuted. Any idea what this means? – user56reinstatemonica8 Jul 09 '20 at 17:00
2

Some Notebooks allow to disable their webcam and microphone in the BIOS settings.

Marvo
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Use PulseAudio Volume Control (which has a GUI):

  • install pavucontrol via terminal (e.g. snap install pavucontrol or sudo apt install pavucontrol)
  • launch the tool via terminal or via launcher PulseAudio Volume Control
  • Go to the "Configuration" tab (you might need to resize the window to see it)
  • Disable the microphone by switching it to Off

This also worked for me after plugging in the webcam again (it's still switched off).

enter image description here

hb0
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