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simon shields
Asked: 2019-11-13 00:25:38 +0800 CST

ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS does not recognise my macbook onboard camera

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I recently replace my macair's operating system with Ubuntu 18.04.3. I installed skype and noticed the camera was not recognised.

Here's some information on my system:

lshw output 

description: Laptop
product: MacBookAir7,1 (System SKU#)
vendor: Apple Inc.
version: 1.0
serial: C02P7CM7GFWM
width: 64 bits
capabilities: smbios-2.7 dmi-2.7 smp vsyscall32
configuration: boot=normal chassis=laptop family=Mac sku=System SKU# uuid=6CC9DA71-AC5E-7B52-AB2A-5CC6442374ED

The result of

sudo lsmod | grep video

gives

video  49152  1 i915

/etc/local/src does not exist in my configuration

under /usr/src, I have the following 

bcmwl-6.30.223.271+bdcom  linux-headers-5.0.0-23  linux-headers-5.0.0-23-generic

Love to hear from someone if anyone wants to help me tackle this problem.

camera macbook-air 18.04

1 Answers

  1. From @simon-shields's edited question:

    This is how I fixed it.

    (Note that this requires curl to be installed, which can be done with sudo apt install curl.)

    1) Clone, the bcwc_pcie driver from https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie.git

    $ cd /usr/local/src
$ sudo git clone https://github.com/patjak/bcwc_pcie.git
Cloning into 'bcwc_pcie'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 8, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (8/8), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (6/6), done.
remote: Total 1057 (delta 2), reused 4 (delta 0), pack-reused 1049
Receiving objects: 100% (1057/1057), 352.48 KiB | 537.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (709/709), done.

    2) Clone the facetimehd-firmware from https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd-firmware into the bcwc_pcie folder

    $ cd /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie
$ sudo git clone https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd-firmware
Cloning into 'facetimehd-firmware'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 1, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (1/1), done.
remote: Total 886 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 885
Receiving objects: 100% (886/886), 290.76 KiB | 294.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (585/585), done.

    3) Build and install the facetimehd-firmware

    $ cd /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/facetimehd-firmware
$ sudo make

Checking dependencies for driver download...
/usr/bin/curl
/usr/bin/xzcat
/bin/cpio

Downloading the driver, please wait...


Found matching hash from OS X, El Capitan 10.11.5
==> Extracting firmware...
 --> Decompressing the firmware using gzip...
 --> Deleting temporary files...
 --> Extracted firmware version 1.43.0

$ sudo make install
Copying firmware into '//lib/firmware/facetimehd'

    4) Make and install the bcwc_pcie driver

    $ cd /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie
$ sudo make
make -C /lib/modules/5.0.0-23-generic/build M=/usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie modules
make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-5.0.0-23-generic'
  CC [M]  /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/fthd_ddr.o
  CC [M]  /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/fthd_hw.o
  CC [M]  /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/fthd_drv.o
  CC [M]  /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/fthd_ringbuf.o
  CC [M]  /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/fthd_isp.o
  CC [M]  /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/fthd_v4l2.o
  CC [M]  /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/fthd_buffer.o
  CC [M]  /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/fthd_debugfs.o
  LD [M]  /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/facetimehd.o
  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST 1 modules
  CC      /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/facetimehd.mod.o
  LD [M]  /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/facetimehd.ko
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-5.0.0-23-generic'

$ sudo make install
make -C /lib/modules/5.0.0-23-generic/build M=/usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie modules_install
make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-5.0.0-23-generic'
  INSTALL /usr/local/src/bcwc_pcie/facetimehd.ko
At main.c:160:
- SSL error:02001002:system library:fopen:No such file or directory: ../crypto/bio/bss_file.c:72
- SSL error:2006D080:BIO routines:BIO_new_file:no such file: ../crypto/bio/bss_file.c:79
sign-file: certs/signing_key.pem: No such file or directory
  DEPMOD  5.0.0-23-generic
Warning: modules_install: missing 'System.map' file. Skipping depmod.
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-5.0.0-23-generic'

    5) Enable the drivers

    $ sudo depmod
$ sudo modprobe -r bdc_pci
$ sudo modprobe facetimehd

    Now Skype uses the facetimehd driver for video.

    But, for some reason the camera does not come on until used by another native application, e.g. cheese.

    $ sudo apt install cheese

    **6) To ensure facetimehd starts on reboot append a line to
    /etc/modules by running the command
    sudo echo facetimehd >> /etc/modules

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