No sound and no webcam on MacBook pro - Mint 20.3

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efwalcker
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No sound and no webcam on MacBook pro - Mint 20.3

Post by efwalcker »

Hi All,

I wanted something better than the Mac OS which started to be annoying with updates and cloud and whatnot, and decided to go with Linux Mint 20.3 on my (I believe 2016) MacBook pro 13 inch. I am not an expert, but usually I am somehow able to figure things out in linux with the help of various websites that can navigate you through the terminal. So I did a fresh installation. My sound is not working, and I tried messing with the pulseaudio, reinstalled it, searched around various forums what might be the problem, and had no luck.

I also noticed that the integrated webcam is not working, when opening Cheese app, it says "No device found".

At first I thought it is something with the drivers, so I opened the Driver Manager that showed a big check mark, with a message "your computer does not need any additional drivers". I remember using an earlier version of Linux mint some time ago, and the Driver Manager would let me choose and pick which driver I want for various hardware like graphics. Does that option exist anywhere?

Any help is very much appreciated!
Thanks!
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Reddog1
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Re: No sound and no webcam on MacBook pro - Mint 20.3

Post by Reddog1 »

Please post the inxi report for that macbook.

inxi Fxxrzc0

I don't have that exact laptop but I think it has an intel on board sound card which should work out of the box. Apple had some firmware problems with sound cutting out about that time, especially if the charger was plugged in. If you dual boot does the sound work in osx? If not dual boot, does it work in the live usb? Do you hear the startup chime?

If you haven't already, install pulseaudio-equalizer and look to see if you have something set to zero output.

The camera should be working out of the box with the uvc driver, too. However, I've had problems with Cheese failing with Apple cameras. Install guvcview and try the camera again.

Both pulseaudio-equalizer and guvcview are in the Software Manager

Every lnux install on a Apple is a Forrest Gump adventure (like a box of chocolates)
efwalcker
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Re: No sound and no webcam on MacBook pro - Mint 20.3

Post by efwalcker »

Dear Reddog1,

Thank you for your reply! This for sure is becoming a Forrest Gump adventure! I am not dual-booting as I simply had it with MacOs, so I erased it and installed Mint. There is also no sound in the live boot from USB, and also no startup sound.

I installed guvcview and it greeted me with an error message "no video device found". I also installed pulseaudio-equalizer, but I am unable to find it among my apps in the start menu, and I am not sure how to launch it, software manager will say it is installed, but it does not give me the green launch button as with all other apps. I also installed pulseaudio volume control, and that one opens fine, but still no sound. It doesn't show anything muted or any output levels set to zero, so I am not sure what is the problem here...

Here is the system report.

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-91-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 5.2.7 wm: muffin dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 20.3 Una 
  base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Apple product: MacBookPro14,1 v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
  Chassis: type: 9 v: Mac-B4831CEBD52A0C4C serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Apple model: Mac-B4831CEBD52A0C4C v: MacBookPro14,1 serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: Apple v: MBP141.88Z.0178.B00.1806260902 date: 06/26/2018 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 31.3 Wh condition: 41.3/54.6 Wh (76%) volts: 11.6/11.4 
  model: SMP bq20z451 serial: N/A status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-7360U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Amber Lake rev: 9 L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 18399 
  Speed: 500 MHz min/max: 400/3600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 500 2: 500 
  3: 500 4: 500 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 vendor: Apple driver: i915 
  v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:5926 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: modesetting 
  unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 2560x1600~60Hz 
  OpenGL: 
  renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640 (Kaby Lake GT3e) (KBL GT3) 
  v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.3 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:9d71 
  Device-2: Broadcom and subsidiaries 720p FaceTime HD Camera driver: N/A 
  bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 14e4:1570 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-91-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM4350 802.11ac Wireless Network 
  Adapter 
  vendor: Apple driver: brcmfmac v: kernel port: 3040 bus ID: 02:00.0 
  chip ID: 14e4:43a3 
  IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 113.00 GiB used: 9.22 GiB (8.2%) 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Apple model: SSD AP0128J size: 113.00 GiB 
  speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> 
  ID-2: /dev/nvme0n2 vendor: Apple model: SSD AP0128J size: 8 KiB 
  speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 110.23 GiB used: 9.22 GiB (8.4%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 26.6 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  1: deb cdrom:[Linux Mint 20.3 _Una_ - Release amd64 20220104]/ focal contrib main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com una main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
  2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
Info:
  Processes: 211 Uptime: 2m Memory: 7.64 GiB used: 1.10 GiB (14.4%) 
  Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash 
  v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38
Thanks again for your time and help with this!
Reddog1
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Re: No sound and no webcam on MacBook pro - Mint 20.3

Post by Reddog1 »

Your sound drivers are properly loaded, so it is likely a pulseaudio problem. You don't have an external monitor hooked up via hdmi, do you?

Open a terminal and then type: pavucontrol
Output Devices should show Built in Analog Stereo checked and the speaker should NOT be muted.
The Port: should be Speakers and the slider should be somewhere other than Silence
Configuration should be: Analog Stereo Duplex and check Show volume meters


Your webcam is recognized, but no drivers are loaded (fthd_pci_driver). You've run into the apple proprietary firmware problem. I've hit that myself with some (more than some, actually) apple webcams, and it requires loading the firmware in order to activated the drivers. That is one of the reasons that arch-based distros can work better on Apple machines than Debian-based, because arch has the firmware available as an AUR package, and the driver module as another AUR package. Not long ago, I installed Mint on a macbook and I had to use the github. I believe the driver automatically loaded on reboot. It is a PITA, but it does work.

Start here: https://github.com/patjak/facetimehd

Search for Stono/99-install-facetime-camera.sh which is the kernel module

You will need to download and then chmod +x and sudo ./ to run the script. Told you it was a PITA. Read the comments following the script for help


I really wish that Debian/Ubuntu would do a better job of supporting those of us that install on Apples.
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