Fedora 41 Has Working Intel IPU6 Web Camera Support With Modern Laptops

It's been a long journey to see good web camera support for Intel Alder Lake and newer designs making use of the IPU6 imaging IP. But with Fedora 41 due for release in the coming weeks, there will finally be good out-of-the-box, open-source support for the IPU6-based web cameras in modern Intel Core laptops across Tigerlake / Alder Lake / Raptor Lake laptops.

The Intel IPU6 web camera support has been a big headache and what led prominent Linux kernel developers two years ago to recommend avoiding Intel Alder Lake laptops for Linux use due to the web camera challenges. In the time since Intel has been working to get more of the code open-source and upstream, but it's still a complex process and there are also firmware binaries involved.

Red Hat engineer Hans de Goede announced this week that for Fedora 41 they finally have all the fully open-source libcamera software ISP based IPU6 camera support ready. Furthermore, there are no known bugs left in the support. This support had been part of the F41 feature plans but is only now fully-baked.

While this Intel IPU6 web camera support for Fedora 41 is working up through Raptor Lake, there are known issues right now preventing newer Meteor Lake laptops from enjoying working support. Lunar Lake will likely present further challenges for open-source developers.

Those interested in the Intel IPU6 web camera support to find with the upcoming Fedora 41 release can read this blog post by Hans de Goede.