Surface Pro 7 - Internal Camera Not Working in Zorin OS 17.3 Pro

Hardware Support
1

Hello! I'm using Zorin OS 17.3 Pro on a Surface Pro 7. The external USB camera is detected immediately and works without any problems. However, the internal camera is not working — I assume it's an issue with IPU4 support in Linux. Does anyone have experience with a solution or workaround? Thanks in advance!

3

Surface devices, being Microsoft, aren't terribly Linux friendly by default. Right now, even the special Surface kernel can't run the cameras on a Surface Pro 7.

Keep your eyes on this; if/when support is added, you can switch kernels to get support before any changes go upstream:

And here, if you decide to switch, are the instructions, straight from Zorin:

2 Likes
4

Your camera is not supported yet:

1 Like
5

Thanks for all the information and links! I can confirm that the external USB camera works without any problems, while the internal camera on the Surface Pro 7 is not detected. After checking the official linux-surface page, it is clear that none of the built-in cameras (OV5693, OV8865, OV7251) are currently supported — probably due to the lack of support for IPU4 (Image Processing Unit) in the Linux kernel.

The special Surface kernel also does not currently support these cameras. I will follow the development on GitHub and switch to the appropriate kernel if there is progress, as described in the Zorin Help guide.

Thanks again for the guidance — if there is a solution or experimental support, I will be happy to test it!

6

Glede na tabelo podpore za Surface naprave je kamera na SP7 označena kot nepodprta (:cross_mark:), kar potrjuje, da gre za širši problem z IPU4 in ne le za konfiguracijo v Zorin OS.

7

However, I installed the Linux Surface Kernel following the official instructions from Zorin Help to improve overall hardware compatibility. The process involves:
wget -qO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/master/pkg/keys/surface.asc | gpg --dearmor | sudo dd of=/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/linux-surface.gpg
echo "deb [arch=amd64] Index of /debian release main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/linux-surface.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install linux-image-surface linux-headers-surface iptsd libwacom-surface
sudo systemctl enable iptsd
sudo update-grub
After rebooting, the system is stable, but the camera remains non-functional. I will follow the development on GitHub and switch to the appropriate kernel if there is progress. Thanks again for the guidance — if any solution or experimental support comes up, I'm happy to test it!