The media subsystem updates were submitted and subsequently merged on Thursday for the ongoing Linux 6.17 merge window. There are several notable media changes for Linux 6.17 but arguably most prominent is the IPU7 driver entering staging for working on web camera support for Intel Lunar Lake and next-generation Panther Lake laptops.
Following all of the struggles around upstream Linux support for the Intel IPU6 imaging processing unit on Alder Lake laptops and newer that made web camera support a pain, fortunately, it’s not taking as long for IPU7 to materialize in the mainline kernel. Still Lunar Lake laptops have been shipping since last year and for those models making use of the Intel IPU7 IP, the mainline driver’s arrival is late but at least it’s out ahead of Panther Lake.
THe Intel IPU7 image processing unit driver has been under review for a while and is entering the media subsystem’s “staging” area for Linux 6.17. The IPU7 can be used for capturing images from MIPI camera sensors. The IPU7 driver is expected to leave the staging area once the IPU6 and IPU7 drivers have merged their common code into a standalone module.
The Intel IPU7 driver in current form comes in at more than 17 thousand lines of code. Plus new firmware binaries are needed for Intel IPU7 usage.
In addition to merging the Intel IPU7 PCI driver, the media updates for Linux 6.17 also bring some Video 4 Linux 2 (V4L2) core enhancements, the Qualcomm ris driver added HEVC and VP9 encoder/decoder support, the Rockchip video decoder driver was promoted out of the staging area, and the VSP1 media driver added support for the Renesas VSPX.
More details on these media changes for Linux 6.17 via this pull.
