Linux support with modern webcams is reportedly a big issue right now for 12th generation Alder Lake laptops. Pholonics article. Linux kernel maintainer Greh Kroah-Hartman says causal users should avoid Alder Lake laptops with Linux if they want to make video calls on their machines. Due to issues with mainline kernel support for webcams, webcam support is almost non-existent.
Hartman ironically notes that Linux support on Alder Lake is very good. However, for some reason, webcams are the only exception. The lack of mainline kernel support forced the manufacturer to write a proprietary driver for his webcam.
A prime example of this is the new MIPI IPU6 webcam found in Alder Lake laptops such as the Dell XPS 13 and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Linux drivers that support IPU6 are completely proprietary and only support specific kernel versions of Linux. This makes it impossible to update the Linux kernel unless bricked webcam functionality is required.
This is just one example of limited Linux webcam support. “…buy these notebooks if you don’t want your vendor to properly upstream their drivers.”
The main problem is that the IPU6 driver does not use the Video 4 Linux 2 interface. This is the common API used by his webcam driver for Linux. Instead, the IPU6 driver relies on another API. This is because cameras are more complex than other solutions and vendors don’t want to expose their image processing algorithms.
Thankfully, Phoronix says they have plans to upstream Intel’s IPU6 driver to the CAM kernel API. This looks like a new open source webcam API for Linux. But that work is still a ways off, with a development timeline of at least a year (if not two).
Basically, most of the 12th generation laptop models appear to have this new MIPI IPU6 webcam. As a result, mediocre support by proprietary drivers can lead to Linux compatibility issues.
If you can find an Alder Lake laptop with a different webcam, chances are you won’t have these issues. You can always connect one of the best external webcams and it probably supports Linux. Alternatively, you can use Windows as your host OS and run Linux in a virtual environment instead.
