built-in webcam of TrekStor SurfTab twin 11.6

[dreamer88]

Hi,
i installed Mageia 9 on a TrekStor SurfTab twin 11.6 (Intel Atom x5-Z8350 / Cherry-Trail based tablet with detachable keyboard) and everything seems to work fine except the built in webcam which does not seem to be recognized at all.

I did some research and found the following article that seems to indicate that support for the built in webcams for Cherry-Trail based devices improved greatly with kernel 6.7: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.7-Media

Unfortunately Mageia 9 uses kernel 6.6.xx and even Cauldron seems to still use the same 6.6.xx Kernel that Mageia 9 uses.

Is there a newer (at least 6.7) kernel precompiled for Mageia available somewhere? (Didn't tmb have a repo with newer kernels for Mageia?)

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

[benmc]

latest Mageia kernel, is as you noted: kernel-desktop-6.6.43-1.mga10-1-1.mga10.x86_64.rpm
Date of upload was 2024-07-27 22:18.( http://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/p ... e/release/)

so over a month ago.

The new kernel developer has been / is relocating, so may not yet had time to get back to working on the kernel. Life stuff has a habit like that.

Patience would probably be required.

I also have 2 Atom based devices, but am in no pressing hurry / need to have the camera working. ( Linx-7 dual booted with Win8, Asus T100TA transformer book dual booted with Win10 )

[doktor5000]

The output of

Code: Select all

lspcidrake -v

would be helpful

[dreamer88]

here is the output of lspcidrake -v:

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xhci_pci        : Intel Corporation|Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series USB xHCI Controller [SERIAL_USB] (vendor:8086 device:22b5 subv:8086 subd:7270) (rev: 36)
Card:Intel 810 and later: Intel Corporation|Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Integrated Graphics Controller [DISPLAY_VGA] (vendor:8086 device:22b0 subv:8086 subd:7270) (rev: 36)
processor_thermal_device_pci_legacy: Intel Corporation|Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series Power Management Controller [SIGNAL_OTHER] (vendor:8086 device:22dc subv:8086 subd:7270) (rev: 36
)
mei_txe         : Intel Corporation|Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series Trusted Execution Engine [CRYPT_OTHER] (vendor:8086 device:2298 subv:8086 subd:7270) (rev: 36)
intel_atomisp2_pm: Intel Corporation|Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series Imaging Unit [MULTIMEDIA_OTHER] (vendor:8086 device:22b8 subv:8086 subd:7270) (rev: 36)
unknown         : Intel Corporation|Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series SoC Transaction Register [BRIDGE_HOST] (vendor:8086 device:2280 subv:8086 subd:7270) (rev: 36)
lpc_ich         : Intel Corporation|Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series PCU [BRIDGE_ISA] (vendor:8086 device:229c subv:8086 subd:7270) (rev: 36)
hub             : Linux 6.6.43-desktop-1.mga9 xhci-hcd|xHCI Host Controller [Hub|Unused|Full speed (or root) hub] (vendor:1d6b device:0002)
hub             : Genesys Logic, Inc.|USB2.0 Hub [Hub|Unused|Full speed (or root) hub] (vendor:05e3 device:0608)
usbhid          : LIZHI Flash IC|USB Keyboard [Human Interface Device|Boot Interface Subclass|Keyboard] (vendor:1c4f device:0063)
hub             : Linux 6.6.43-desktop-1.mga9 xhci-hcd|xHCI Host Controller [Hub|Unused|Full speed (or root) hub] (vendor:1d6b device:0003)
hid_multitouch  : FTSC1000:00 2808:50AB



[morgano]

Anyway we usually only provide LTS kernels in stable release updates, but intermediate versions may appear in backports if needed.

[dreamer88]

That's ok, I don't mind using a Cauldron kernel once a newer than 6.6.xx kernel becomes available in Cauldron.

[doktor5000]

here is the output of lspcidrake -v:

Sure that this is the complete output? That looks too short.

[dreamer88]

Yes that's the complete output, what are you missing?

The webcam is listed: intel_atomisp2_pm: Intel Corporation|Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series Imaging Unit [MULTIMEDIA_OTHER] (vendor:8086 device:22b8 subv:8086 subd:7270) (rev: 36)

But not found by any application, such as "cheese" and some others I tried.

[doktor5000]

That webcam should be supported since a really long time: https://linux-hardware.org/index.php?id ... -8086-7270
You may need to check journal logs what firmware it tries to load, and maybe get a different firmware version.

[dreamer88]

I saw that page during my research related to this webcam before but it shows "failed" on almost all distros, a few show "detected" but none that I could see show "works".

That's why I was looking for kernel 6.7 because, according to the Phoronix article I linked in my first post, in 6.7 the driver was greatly improved (according to the article before 6.7 it had compile time options that made it work either with one specific hardware or another but not both).

The only references to the camera I was able to find in dmesg and journalctl are lines like the following two that appear during every boot up, nothing related to loading of firmware:

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[   15.197795] intel_atomisp2_pm 0000:00:03.0: Unable to change power state from D3cold to D0, device inaccessible
[   34.576685] intel_atomisp2_pm 0000:00:03.0: Unable to change power state from D3cold to D0, device inaccessible


BTW, i have both firmware packages installed (free and non-free).

[doktor5000]

Out of curiosity, could you please also post the output of lsusb ?

[dreamer88]

I think the following bug discussion from Ubuntu explains the situation before kernel 6.7:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... ug/2017444
Basically the driver before 6.7 was causing serious problems on several machines so it was disabled.

The kernel module intel_atomisp2_pm.ko that is used instead (also by Mageia with the current 6.6 kernel) is only a dummy / power-management driver to disable the camera so that it doesn't consume battery power unnecessarily.

With kernel 6.7 the driver was improved and should be usable, but I tried booting from USB the Live image of Linuxmint 22 which uses kernel 6.8 but they still have the dummy module enabled and the real driver disabled at compile time.

Basically what is needed is a kernel >= 6.7 with the dummy module (intel_atomisp2_pm.ko / CONFIG_INTEL_ATOMISP2_PM) disabled and the real driver (atomisp.ko / CONFIG_INTEL_ATOMISP) enabled.

[dreamer88]

I noticed that kernel 6.12 from Cauldron still doesn't have Intel Atom ISP camera drivers enabled. Has this been forgotten or is there a reason for this?

This is the kernel config needed:

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Enable support to Intel Atom ISP camera drivers (INTEL_ATOMISP) [Y/n/?] y
  Intel Atom Image Signal Processor Driver (VIDEO_ATOMISP) [N/m/?] (NEW) m
    OVT ov2722 sensor support (VIDEO_ATOMISP_OV2722) [N/m/?] (NEW) m
    Galaxy gc2235 sensor support (VIDEO_ATOMISP_GC2235) [N/m/?] (NEW) m
    Helper library to load, parse and apply large register lists. (VIDEO_ATOMISP_MSRLIST_HELPER) [N/m/?] (NEW) m
    Aptina mt9m114 sensor support (VIDEO_ATOMISP_MT9M114) [N/m/?] (NEW) m
    GC0310 sensor support (VIDEO_ATOMISP_GC0310) [N/m/?] (NEW) m


[sturmvogel]

You need to notify the maintainers about the missing build flag via a bugreport or nothing will change.

[morgano]

For this, I now opened https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34698

[dreamer88]

Thanks for opening that bug report for me.

In the last few days I tried to rebuild the 6.12 kernel src rpm from cauldron on mageia 9 with those options mentioned in my previous post enabled and after several attempts (due to insufficient free disk space on the VM that I was using, didn't know that rebuilding the kernel requires around 35 GBytes these days...) I managed to create some binary rpms but there seems to be something wrong with them as they don't work on my tablet, the boot process hangs almost immediately (even before systemd starts).

The original 6.12 kernel binary rpm from cauldron (not rebuilt by myself) does work on the tablet with mageia 9, but of course it doesn’t have the camera drivers enabled so the camera doesn't work with it.

[dreamer88]

Actually now the tablet boots fine with my rebuilt cauldron 6.12 kernel package with the atomisp webcam drivers enabled.

lsmod is showing the following:

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$ more /etc/release
Mageia release 9 (Official) for x86_64
$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 6.12.53-desktop-1.LTN_mga9 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Oct 28 03:23:34 CET 2025 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ lsmod|grep isp
atomisp               978944  0
atomisp_gmin_platform    36864  1 atomisp
ipu_bridge             16384  1 atomisp
videobuf2_vmalloc      20480  1 atomisp
videobuf2_v4l2         32768  1 atomisp
videobuf2_common       77824  4 atomisp,videobuf2_vmalloc,videobuf2_v4l2,videobuf2_memops
v4l2_fwnode            32768  2 atomisp,ov2680
v4l2_async             32768  3 atomisp,v4l2_fwnode,ov2680
videodev              352256  5 atomisp,v4l2_async,v4l2_fwnode,ov2680,videobuf2_v4l2
mc                     81920  6 atomisp,v4l2_async,videodev,ov2680,videobuf2_v4l2,videobuf2_common
drm_display_helper    258048  1 i915
drm_kms_helper        237568  2 drm_display_helper,i915
drm                   737280  10 i2c_hid,drm_kms_helper,drm_display_helper,drm_buddy,i915,ttm
cec                    90112  2 drm_display_helper,i915


ov2680 is the camera sensor chip, this matches the config in the BIOS.

The problem left is that cheese does not want to start, nothing happens when I start it, no window appears, I tried from the terminal too, I can CTRL-C it fine so it doesn´t hang in a bad way.

is there any other app I can use to test the webcam?

[dreamer88]

I tried with camorama just now and it works fine, I can see a live video stream from the camera!

So I can confirm that enabling those Linux kernel drivers listed previously enables the built in webcam on my Intel Atom x5-Z8350 / Cherry-Trail based tablet.

[morgano]

Well done!
Please comment on the bug, and later test when a fixed kernel is ready for testing:
There will come a 6.12 kernel for Mageia 9: https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=34545

[Germ]

kernel-6.12.44 is in /backports/testing/ for Mageia 9. I've been running it with no problems.