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I don't know what the deal is with Linux and cameras. I've got Fedora installed on this old Retina MBP and apparently Linux somehow stopped supporting the built

• AnthonyMouse 1mo ago
  Once the code is in the mainline kernel tree, things tend to stay supported indefinitely. Some devices "work" without having real support by having some binary blob or third party code which is written against a specific kernel version. The code has to be updated when the kernel changes, which is why it's supposed to be in the kernel tree, but because it isn't the kernel developers don't know anything about it and aren't maintaining it. So then instead of working indefinitely it works until whenever third party stops updating it for current versions of the kernel. Which is why all the drivers should be in the kernel tree. Of course, Apple isn't really that interested in supporting Linux since it's a direct competitor to macOS rather than a way to reduce their dependency on Microsoft/Google, so their hardware is more likely than most to be stuck using some reverse engineered alpha driver or proprietary blob extricated from the macOS one.
  • megous 1mo ago
    Once code is in mainline, it's in mainline. It doesn't mean things will work, lol. It means things will rather regularly break, because many people modify shared code you depend on without ability to test on your particular HW. Not saying pushing mainline is bad. But assumption there's any kind of "support" is wrong. Code is there. That's all. You have to support it if you want it to work. (This is very particular to HW/drivers support, Linux core is supported well, I guess.)