Intel's IPU6 Webcam Linux Driver Still A Mess, But Some Patches To Help

[darkbasic]

They moved auto-focus, debayering (including the AI enhancements), auto-exposure, and similar features from the firmware to userspace, and nobody expected this. That's why everything sucks. And I think it will suck forever, because of lawyers.

Does it mean I can get a raw output from my webcam? That sounds awesome!

[timrichardson]

Webcams on laptops are very bad and this is Intel's attempt to fix it. Maybe the pandemic accelerated product development. But it's appalling it wasn't open sourced or co-ordinated better with Linux. I read earlier that the Linux drivers which are a pain to build are also not very good, they basically emulate the old USB interface so you don't get any advantage from the new capabilities.
I think the advice to avoid them will be sensible for a long time yet.

[microcode]

Mess or no mess, it is cool that new laptops have standard MIPI interfaces on the inside going straight into the SoC, which could make for much industry improvement.