[Debian/Ubuntu] FacetimeHD Webcam Driver

[Joom]

So, this is my first time building and distributing a DEB package, and it may not work as intended. I don't have a second Mac on hand that I can test with. I'm posting this for any other Mac users out there that are having a hard time getting the internal webcam working. The process to do it manually is rather tedious, and documentation is lacking. This is also a DKMS package, which means any time your kernel gets updated, the driver should be automatically added to the new kernel, making reinstalling it unnecessary. I've also extracted the color profiles from the Bootcamp driver, so color correction should also work properly. Credits for the actual driver go to patjak.

This driver should work with the following models:

• iMac (21,5", since mid 2011)
• iMac (27", since mid 2011)
• MacBook Air (since mid 2011)
• MacBook Pro (15", since early 2011)
• MacBook Pro (17", since early 2011)
• MacBook Pro (13", since early 2011)
• Thunderbolt display

Download ZIP

First, install the camera firmware from Apple:

> $ sudo apt install git cpio curl xz-utils
> $ sudo su - && cd /usr/local/src
> # git clone https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd-firmware.git && cd facetimehd-firmware
> # make && make install
> # exit

Then, install the driver and color profiles:

> $ unzip facetimehd-dkms_0.1_all-20221111.zip -d facetimehd && cd facetimehd
> $ sudo dpkg -i facetimehd-dkms_0.1_all-20221111.deb
> $ sudo cp Color\ Profiles/*.dat /usr/lib/firmware/facetimehd

Reboot and you should be good to go. Please let me know if anything goes wrong. I'll try to help as best as possible.

Update - June 11th, 2022
A few commits have been made since I posted this, so I decided to build a new version with the latest changes. Instructions are pretty much still the same, and you can check the commit links below for changes. They're in the order of newest to oldest.

75a2a58 - Use dma_set_coherent_mask() instead of pci_set_consistent_dma_mask()
8431504 - Specify module device table
f85a604 - Apply SPDX license identifiers and provide a LICENSE file

Update - December 18th, 2022

Belated, but built the driver against Linux 6.x for a proper DKMS package.

Bonus:
If you don't use a Debian based distro, there are also RPM packages for RHEL based distributions, a PKGBUILD for Arch based distributions, and packages for OpenSUSE. Here are instructions for Gentoo as well.

 

[Mackius]

Hi Joom - Thanks very much indeed for your very helpful post. I'm using a Macair which I bought in July 2013 and on which I recently started to use LinuxMint. After finding that the built-in camera wouldn't work, I followed various online instructions and was finally able to get it to work. But the transmitted image had a strong golden hue. When I "researched" the problem, I came across your post, and implemented your easy to follow instructions. I'm very grateful. Best wishes. Bill

 

[Joom]

Hi Joom - Thanks very much indeed for your very helpful post. I'm using a Macair which I bought in July 2013 and on which I recently started to use LinuxMint. After finding that the built-in camera wouldn't work, I followed various online instructions and was finally able to get it to work. But the transmitted image had a strong golden hue. When I "researched" the problem, I came across your post, and implemented your easy to follow instructions. I'm very grateful. Best wishes. Bill

Oh cool, so it worked out for you? I imagine you probably needed the color profiles. Without them, my 2015 MBP's camera is green and red, so it's probably similar across most, if not all models that use this driver. Anyway, glad to hear this helped.

 

[Deleted member 575583]

Hello, thank you for your guide, but still after completing the steps I get no image at all of the camera on Zoom (which is where I tested) nor do I get any green light indicating the camera would be on.

Using Lubuntu 21.10

 

[Joom]

Bumping this to mention that I've updated the driver package. More information is in the OP.

 

[WiiMiiSwitch]

Wait so does this mean I could use facetime on Linux?

 

[Joom]

Wait so does this mean I could use facetime on Linux?

No, unfortunately. The name of the webcam is "FacetimeHD", and this is just a driver. The Linux kernel doesn't come with support baked in, and this is a rather hacky driver that was built from reverse engineering the camera's firmware. Color calibration profiles also have to be extracted from the Windows driver (included in this ZIP), so I imagine these are the reasons why "official" Linux support hasn't come about.

 

[WiiMiiSwitch]

No, unfortunately. The name of the webcam is "FacetimeHD", and this is just a driver. The Linux kernel doesn't come with support baked in, and this is a rather hacky driver that was built from reverse engineering the camera's firmware. Color calibration profiles also have to be extracted from the Windows driver (included in this ZIP), so I imagine these are the reasons why "official" Linux support hasn't come about.

Oh so you could use the driver on Linux

 

[Hekel_UK]

Hi man, first and foremost, thanks for doing this

I've followed your process, and it completed successfully, but after a restart, it doesn't seem to do much.
If I open Cheese the webcam never turns on.

I'm running Ubuntu 22.04 on a Macbook Pro 13 Retina (early 2015)

Any idea?

Thanks

 

[zarbout]

Nice shot mate. MacBook Pro Retina mid 2014. Relieved me ! You should push this somewhere on the indexed forums ! Hard time to find this "perle" !

 

[zarbout]

Nice shot mate. MacBook Pro Retina mid 2014. Relieved me ! You should push this somewhere on the indexed forums ! Hard time to find this "perle" !