ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS does not recognise my macbook onboard camera

Question

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.

Hi Simon, Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! After your edit, what you've posted is both a question and an answer. Please keep the question in the question box and the answer in the answer box or it gets confusing. If you don't get the answer box, you can tick the "Answer my own question" box below the question, or wait a couple of days. This gives others the chance to answer your question, possibly in a different way. :-) — tudor -Reinstate Monica-, Nov 12 '19 at 09:17
Possible duplicate of https://askubuntu.com/questions/1051079/macbook-pro-camera-not-working-on-ubuntu-18-04?rq=1 — tudor -Reinstate Monica-, Nov 12 '19 at 09:40

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 14 '19 at 12:53

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

you are totally correct except the last part where access is denied. The echo part should be as such `sudo -i echo facetime >> /etc/modules exit` — GGEv, Oct 09 '20 at 21:36

ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS does not recognise my macbook onboard camera

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