What is Cheese?
Cheese is a picture-taking program for computers with webcams built-in (laptops) or attached (external via USB). Cheese is also capable of recording small videos (for larger videos, a program like Open Broadcasting System, OBS, is recommended).
Designed as a simple program, Cheese has a few extra features, such as the ability to add various effects on top of the image (Hulk, for example).
Cheese also features a limited number of options that include the ability to control an image’s Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Hue, and the ability to set the number of photos captured and the delay between captured photos.
Why was Cheese removed from Computer Recycling’s Xubuntu installations?
Both Cheese and Webcamoid have issues with the Facetime HD driver used on MacBook Air’s from the 2015-2017 era. The same Facetime HD driver works for Zoom, Guvcview, and webcamtest.com, but not Cheese or Webcamoid.
We tested the apt version (41.1) of cheese, the snap version (44.1), and even went as far as compiling it from the gitlab code (44.1), all to the same result – Cheese would start, grab an image, and freeze with the image. The hamburger menu for Cheese would work, but you couldn’t switch between Photo and Video mode, or take a different photo.
What alternative programs can I use instead of Cheese?
Guvcview is probably the best alternative to Cheese. We’ve run into issues where Cheese does not recognize other webcams recognized by Zoom, Guvcview, and other programs. If you’re having an issue with Cheese and your webcam, try Guvcview instead.
To install guvcview in Ubuntu/Xubuntu open a terminal (Windows key + T) and type:
sudo apt install guvcviewOr find the guvcview program in the “Software” program in Ubuntu/Xubuntu and click the install button.
Will Cheese return to Computer Recycling’s Xubuntu installations?
It’s possible cheese might make it back into the list of programs installed by the Computer Recycling project, but we’d like to see a fair amount of work done to get it working with more webcams. As mentioned earlier, Cheese seems to have issues with a lot of webcams that other programs under Xubuntu do not.