#postmarketOS just landed the last MR needed to make the #libcamera + #PipeWire camera stack work on the #Librem5 and #PinePhone by default, using the new software ISP shipped in libcamera 0.3.
So if you have such a device: just update and go install apps like Snapshot, Warp, Decoder etc. You can even use it with Firefox and - very soon - Chromium.

Note that this does *not* replace #megapixels or #millipixels - those continue to be the default camera apps.

Don't expect too much for now: both image quality and performance are not quite where we want them to be.
That, however, also means that there are a lot of low hanging fruits where help is very welcome :)
We need to create #libcamera tuning files for the individual cameras, the swISP could be improved to use the GPU for debayering, there are WIP autofocus patches that could be tried and improved - and in Snapshot we need to reduce the number of copies before frames reach the screen or encoders.

Note that with all of this in place, camera support on a lot of other devices is in close reach. For example the #OnePlus6 and #SHIFT6mq should only need kernel patches enabling the camera sensors. The softwareISP should then - at least in theory - "just work". Well, fingers crossed :)

P.S.: the one device where this already worked is the #PinePhonePro - but until recently it broke audio. That was also fixed in the process.

P.S.S.: maybe I'm a bit too optimistic regarding QC devices, see below

If you're interested in the details: https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/issues/2787

@rmader I have #OnePlus6 here, and I'd love to play with its cameras. I believe "only need kernel patches enabling the camera sensors" is understatement of the year -- it is not just sensors, but if you or someone can get that working, I'll be happy to help.

@pavel Which missing parts do you have in mind? And would they be on the kernel or libcamera side?

P.S.: I was under the impression that the qcom-camss should work there as well - or that it at least wouldn't be missing much.

@rmader Is this just for PMOS or will these patches make their way into #Mobian too?

@greytheearthling It should be quite easy for Mobian to also ship the few necessary downstream patches - which will hopefully become redundant in one of the next libcamera releases. From then on any distro shipping Pipewire (with Wireplumber) and Libcamera by default should be mostly good.

There are some details around kernel configs etc. to still figure out, see e.g.
https://salsa.debian.org/Mobian-team/devices/kernels/librem5-linux/-/merge_requests/29

I don't plan to work on Mobian myself atm though, now that we have a clear example that can be copied.

@rmader @pavel OP6 needs the camss driver updated to support C-PHY on that platform, which currently only supports D-PHY.
Unfortunately - without the datasheets from qualcomm or some reverse engineering of the drivers in a binary implementation thats' quite difficult I think.

Once that's done - I believe we can run the IMX519 that is present on the OP6.

@libcamera @pavel Ah right. Yeah, need to talk @cas into coming over again for another session on that :) (or the shift, which IIRC uses D-PHY?)

@rmader @pavel @cas

Getting the Shift with D-PHY going would be really beneficial to finally confirm/fix/cleanup that imx519 driver. Then we'll have more confidence in the driver working well when the C-PHY is fixed or as part of fixing that.

Happy to support anyone working on the Shift / IMX519 driver bringup of course!

@rmader @libcamera @pavel yeah the 6mq is d-phy.

we'll also need the focus motor i guess xd

@cas @rmader @pavel have you got schematics or any info on the VCM? Those are usually relatively easy to control.

@libcamera @cas @pavel And then we need @Luigi311 to find time to finish the autofocus patches :)

@rmader I was not sure which parts are missing. I am using Droidian, so downstream kernel, and I can't even figure out how camera is supposed to work there. Normally, debugging is required all over the place -- sensor drivers, i2c, soc input... and this has 3 different sensors, for a start :-(. I guess op6 has some kind of isp that would need libcamera support, but basic support should be possible without that. #OnePlus6 .

@libcamera @rmader @pavel haven't looked into it yet

@rmader Does anyone have an idea why #oneplus6 has two back cameras with very similar parameters?

@pavel No, but you don't seem to be the only person wondering: https://community.oneplus.com/thread/834532

@rmader Thanks for pointer. So apparently it is for depth effects.

Turns out that there were still two things missing to make this work OOTB. One thing was a missing package - already fixed - and the other will be fixed in Wireplumber 0.5.3, due in a couple of days.

@pocketvj @rmader Back cameras should be 16 and 20 MPix... I guess we'll learn what the real limits are when we get full drivers.