this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Linux

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago (2 children)

libcamera:

A complex camera support library for Linux, Android, and ChromeOS

Cameras are complex devices that need heavy hardware image processing operations. Control of the processing is based on advanced algorithms that must run on a programmable processor. This has traditionally been implemented in a dedicated MCU in the camera, but in embedded devices algorithms have been moved to the main CPU to save cost. Blurring the boundary between camera devices and Linux often left the user with no other option than a vendor-specific closed-source solution.

To address this problem the Linux media community has very recently started collaboration with the industry to develop a camera stack that will be open-source-friendly while still protecting vendor core IP. libcamera was born out of that collaboration and will offer modern camera support to Linux-based systems, including traditional Linux distributions, ChromeOS and Android.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Thank you for that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Any idea on whether is there more devices supported now? Those release notes are quite gibberish to me. My Surface SP7 camera isn't compatible as of yet :(

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

SP7 camera isn't going to be supported until we get IPU4 Linux drivers, so it isn't a libcamera issue.

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Camera-Support

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Thanks for the clarification! I thought they were related.