Queued up in the past few days to the USB subsystem's "usb-next" Git branch are the Intel USBIO drivers for Linux 6.18. These drivers are needed to support the web cameras on various newer Intel laptop models.

With Linux 6.17 there was [1]the Intel IPU7 driver merged for supporting various webcams on Lunar Lake and upcoming Panther Lake laptops. Another piece of the increasingly complex laptop web camera puzzle is set to be merged for Linux 6.18 and that is the Intel USBIO USB IO-Expander drivers.

The Intel USBIO USB IO-expander is used by MIPI cameras on various Intel Meteor Lake and newer Core Ultra laptops. These Intel USBIO drivers consist of the bridge driver itself as well as GPIO and I2C drivers.

All three of those Intel USBIO drivers are queued up now within the [2]usb.git usb-next branch ahead of the Linux 6.18 merge window opening in two weeks. So in turn these drivers should land for Linux 6.18 to further work on supporting the latest web cameras on select Intel laptops.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-IPU7-Linux-6.17

[2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/usb.git/log/?h=usb-next