These projects are so important for being able to run the software we want, on the hardware we want. While other comments have pointed out that cameras are an i

These projects are so important for being able to run the software we want, on the hardware we want. While other comments have pointed out that cameras are an inflection point for FOSS, I think they've managed to understate it. For all the commenters asking about why this should exist, please read this exchange with Greg KH on LKML discussing the new Intel IPU/MIPI cameras [1]. There are intel hardware devs who explicitly state the proprietary stack exists because currently functionality is not functional. libcamera is specifically pointed out as the necessary project to get camera support a future in the kernel and to incentivize FOSS code for camera interop. The hardware is currently a new frontier of binary blobs, proprietary APIs and weird shims between kernel, drivers, software, and userspace. The thing about Intel is that, like Apple and unlike AMD, they've realized that a computer is more than a CPU. It's a platform. And the functionality and desirability of your platform depends on the laundry list of quality features you deliver... not just GHz and FLOPS. So they're trying to be Apple in their own way much how Apple has succeeded in be(at)ing Intel. Interestingly, in my opinion, quality open source software for their platforms could be the dark horse for their success. And this could not have come up on HN at a better time. Just a few days ago I bought my first ever new laptop (!) for research, an X1 Nano Gen2. I've been a Linux user on old Thinkpads my entire life so I naively bought this hardware on a lark because it filled a very specific niche for me. I zfs sent my OS from my old Thinkpad and tweaked a few things and everything worked phenomenally well. Then I went to try out the fancy webcam... I still haven't managed to get the mish-mash of code they offer to work for the Nano2 OV2740 camera sensor that's being read through Intel's new Alder Lake integrated "IPU", although some people have had more success on Dells [2]. Which is sad given how necessary a webcam is these days. In the spirit of hackernews, if anyone can point me in the right direction for getting the camera working. I'm all ears. Currently the module/firmware refuses to load after compiling the six different libraries necessary for support. I've been working on getting enough information together to open an issue on the github [3] [1] https://www.spinics.net/lists/kernel/msg4467429.html https://www.spinics.net/lists/kernel/msg4467429.html [2] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=277462&p=3 https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=277462&p=3 [3] https://github.com/intel/ipu6-drivers https://github.com/intel/ipu6-drivers