Macbook 2015 Webcam

[unfirthman]

Hello all,

I am using Ubuntu 22.04.2 on an early 2015 MacBook Air, which has a 720p FaceTime HD Camera. I would like to use this camera, however I cannot get Cheese or Google Meet to recognize this device.

I have followed this method (https://www.linux.org/threads/installing-linux-on-an-imac.26009/) to install isight-firmware-tools and AppleUSBVideoSupport. No success.

And this method (https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd/wiki/Get-Started) to install the FaceTime HD Firmware. Also no success.

I have also installed guvcview and it does not recognize the camera.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[ActionParsnip]

What is the output of


lsb_release -a; uname -a; lsusb

Thanks

[unfirthman]

Thanks for replying! Sorry it took a few days to respond... I didn't have notifications on.

The output of the prompts:



No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS
Release: 22.04
Codename: jammy
Linux USER 5.19.0-45-generic #46~22.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Jun 7 15:06:04 UTC 20 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05ac:0291 Apple, Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 05ac:828f Apple, Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0a5c:4500 Broadcom Corp. BCM2046B1 USB 2.0 Hub (part of BCM2046 Bluetooth)
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub


Thank you!

[MAFoElffen]

These instructions (from https://www.linux.org/threads/installing-linux-on-an-imac.26009/) seemed to have also worked for MacBook Air's with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS...


iSight Webcam

The iSight Webcam requires some tools installed. You will need a file from the MacOSX installation media (which I will attach below but it will need to be unzipped). Once you have the media you can find the file at: “/Mac OS X Install DVD/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBVideoSupport.kext/Contents/MacOS/AppleUSBVideoSupport”. Place this file in a location that you can type in the full path location. In a Terminal you need to type the following command:

sudo apt install isight-firmware-tools

After the download and installation a window will appear which will ask you if you have the ‘AppleUSBVideoSupport’ file. Answer ‘Yes’ and you will be prompted for the file location. Delete the current path and type in the location of the file and press Enter. The drivers should be extracted from the Apple file you copied. At this point you need to reboot to get the webcam to work.

I tested the iSight video camera using ‘Cheese’. To install ‘Cheese’ you need to open a Terminal and perform the commands:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install cheese -y

For users at AskUbuntu, the Mint Forum, etc from other distributions.

[unfirthman]

Thank you for the help!

I have isight-firmware-tools v1.6-4 installed on this computer, but still nothing from either Cheese or GoogleMeet.

I did find this old bug associated with the Launchpad package: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/isight-firmware-tools/+bug/757394

Any other help or advice would be greatly appreciated! Maybe it is time for me to register a bug report?

Most of these bug reports are pretty old: https://bugs.launchpad.net/isight-firmware-tools/+bugs?orderby=-datecreated&start=0

The last update is from 2019, I'm not sure if that is helpful!

Thanks again

[QIII]

Moved to Apple Hardware Users

[MAFoElffen]

I doubt that anyone is going to update a bug report from 11.04 beta, circa 2011...

I found some more recent instructions for 22.04: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1430547/webcam-not-working-in-ubuntu-22-04-on-macbook-air

I wanted to make sure this time that I was recommending something that actually worked. I can confirm that it works on my A1181 MacBook (3,1), running 22.04.2 with the HWE kernel series.

Note that it doesn't work with 'cheese'. In fact, if I try to start 'cheese' on mine, that app locks up. It does work with 'guvcview'...

[unfirthman]

You are right! This has finally worked for me.

Ultimately it was my error. This is a two-step process: extracting the firmware (https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd/wiki/Get-Started#firmware-extraction), then installing it (https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd/wiki/Installation#get-started-on-ubuntu). These directions are on two different pages here (https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd/wiki/Get-Started#firmware-extraction) and here (https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd/wiki/Installation#get-started-on-ubuntu).

I had extracted the firmware just fine, but did not go through the process of installing it.

This post (https://askubuntu.com/questions/990218/camera-not-working-on-macbook-pro/1215628#1215628) was quite helpful; it condenses the directions into one block of code.

Thanks everyone for the help!