Found partial fix for 2015 MacBook Air camera issues

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
1

I’ve installed EndeavourOS on both my 2015 MacBook Air 11” and 2017 MacBook Air 13”. As anyone who has tried this discovers, neither EndeavourOS or any other linux version finds these machines’ cameras, even though earlier (say 2011) MacBook Air cameras work by default. It is a curious thing.

Today, though, I stumbled across a brief website entry that offered a simple fix. (Note I had tried some less simple fixes and those did not work.) I’ll leave the link below, but include the most key lines first.

To install needed drivers:
yay -S facetimehd-dkms

Quite a bit of stuff then installs.

Then:
sudo reboot

Okay, that’s it. BUT. Cheese, Kamoso and other linux native camera apps will not work correctly. The author of the page says Chrome works perfectly. I don’t run Chrome so will not comment there. What about Zoom, though?

Zoom on my 11” mba 2015 runs perfectly. I launched it via firefox and it still ran perfectly (the fella who wrote the page says firefox didn’t work for him… but he doesn’t mention Zoom).

That’s all I’ve got. I hope it helps someone.

https://www.lorenzobettini.it/2025/11/getting-your-macbook-air-webcam-working-on-linux/

2

I’m the fella who wrote the blog post. :wink:
Im afraid I don’t use zoom.

1 Like
3

I do use Zoom and you deserve the credit for hekping me get it working.

1 Like
4

I’m the guy in September updated the bug mentioning the camera works with Zoom (you will see EndeavourOS mentioned in the bug comments). Small world after all :slight_smile:

2 Likes