Intel IPU6 Driver Being Upstreamed In Linux 6.10

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel IPU6 Driver Being Upstreamed In Linux 6.10

Intel's Image Processing Unit (IPU) IP has been a cause for concern in recent years as the lack of proper upstream open-source driver support has led Linux users running into troubles making use of MIPI camera sensors on modern laptops. Finally with Linux 6.10 the Intel IPU6 driver is being upstreamed into the media subsystem...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-IPU6-Media-In-Linux-6.10

[access]

Holy shit, FIIIINALLY! Can't wait for 6.10 to land in Debian testing so I can get my X1 gen10 webcam working a bit easier.

[sxiii]

Holy shit, FIIIINALLY! Can't wait for 6.10 to land in Debian testing so I can get my X1 gen10 webcam working a bit easier.

I'm assuming this will happen for Arch, NixOS, Gentoo, and maybe even Fedora quicker. So for testing... Maybe it would see the light of the day next month? Hopefully I also have this webcam since joined new company, for a couple of months now!

[hansdegoede]

Note this is only for what Intel calls the "input system" part of the IPU6, which is the CSI2 receiver. The ISP ("processing system") part is still not supported.

Still this is good news since together with the software ISP code which will be in the upcoming libcamera-0.3 release this does allow a fully FOSS stack using the software ISP. The image quality won't be great (something which we need to work on) but you will get an image and hopefully with some more work on it, it will be as least as good as most mediocre USB webcams often found in laptops.

[whitor]

Note this is only for what Intel calls the "input system" part of the IPU6, which is the CSI2 receiver. The ISP ("processing system") part is still not supported.

Are you aware if Chromium is planning to upstream their kcam/isp module? Software ISP a nice fallback to have, but the image quality/performance/power efficiency is always going to be better with hardware ISP.