I finally found why this Camera driver won't work on an unmodded ASUS laptop-BIOS

[rmast]

The manual prescribes this step:

Enable ISP for Linux in BIOS
When booting Bayley Bay target machine, the BIOS must be set with the right ISP PCI device. In the BIOS settings under "Uncore Configuration" set:

"ISP Enable/Disable" to Enable
"ISP PCI Device" to B0D3F0

This option is not available in a baytrail BIOS.
jfwells Bayley Bay board was some early prototype-board for the later shipped Baytrail-machines.
The only way to get the Linux camera running the way described here is thus by modding the BIOS, so that requirement puts an enormous roadblock for getting support from anyone on this idea until the required BIOS mod is available and becomes such a quality that people dare to risk such a BIOS upgrade.

[rmast]

Povilas told me how he hacked the BIOS with AMIBCP 5.1/5.2 to enable this setting on the ASUS T100.
However I didn't dare to, as the target-machine isn't mine and I would probably loose secure boot because the modified UEFI is written unsigned. What's more: The only way to get the camera-support in Linux is to lower the barrier for enabling it. So if you want to enable the ISP PCI Device this is how to do it without completely reflashing your laptop:

• export the PE32-part of Setup.DXE with UEFITool from your freshly loaded matching BIOS from the ASUS-support-site to an .efi-file.
• Extract the IFR-table with my sligthly modded IFR-Extractor, to recognize language 'en' instead of 'en-US'. https://github.com/rmast/Universal-IFR-Extractor/
  Without this mod this IFR-Extractor will give you an unknown protocol error.
• Find the offset for the ISP PCI Device (in my case for the T200TAS.208 bios 0x70, for the T100TASAS.314 bios 0x6F) in the output_file of the Universal-IFR-Extractor.
• Use RU32.efi booted from USB to edit Setup-variable in the NVRAM. (Alt-= to look for the Setup-section of slightly more than one page (page up/down)). You'll find the initial (Windows-)setting of this variable to be 01. Set it (at your own risk!) to 02 for B0D3F0 and write with ctrl-W.
  The device will appear after full reboot in Linux as a PCI device.

[mirh]

https://lkml.org/lkml/2021/11/1/1030
That's one way to put it, but that never stopped windows from working.
The true deal is that the old atomisp code never supported the default ACPI enumeration.

[EasyNetDev]

Hi all,

I have an Asus T100TAM model.
I was reading this thread / issue and I was able to change the hidden BIOS setting for ISP and I'm seeing it under Linux as PCI device:

# lspci 
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series SoC Transaction Register (rev 0d)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display (rev 0d)
00:03.0 Multimedia controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Camera ISP (rev 0d)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx, Celeron N2000 Series USB xHCI (rev 0d)
00:1a.0 Encryption controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Trusted Execution Engine (rev 0d)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Power Control Unit (rev 0d)

I can see that is loading a driver for it:

# lspci -s 00:03.0 -vvv
00:03.0 Multimedia controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Camera ISP (rev 0d)
	Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 14ed
	Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
	Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
	Latency: 0
	Interrupt: pin ? routed to IRQ 130
	Region 0: Memory at 90000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
	Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2
		Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
		Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
	Capabilities: [90] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
		Address: fee08004  Data: 0024
	Kernel driver in use: atomisp-isp2
	Kernel modules: intel_atomisp2_pm, atomisp

The drivers I'm using is a DKMS build by me to compile the original Linux Atom ISP driver out side the kernel.
But still I can't see the camera in Gnome or in /dev/

Have any ideas? I'm runing Kernel 6.7.12 on Debian.

[mirh]

Believe it or not, they are still working on this
https://lore.kernel.org/all/fd65d648-7c79-c8bc-ab0f-9c9f2ea119a1@redhat.com/
https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-media/list/?submitter=582
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.7-Media

[EasyNetDev]

Hm .. That's intresting. I'm already running 6.7.12. I have to check when the patches were submitted to the kernel and for which version, because I see that some patches are from this month (https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-media/list/?submitter=582) and I believe will be integrated in a new kernel release.

[EasyNetDev]

Seems the patches are pushed for 6.8, 6.9 and 6.10.
Also I forgot to mention something. After digging a lot for how I can make the camera works, I've found on some forums or Intel forum that Atom ISP needs some firmwares:

$ ls -lh
total 22M
-rw-r--r-- 1 easynet easynet 11M Apr  7  2016 shisp_2400b0_v21.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 easynet easynet 12M Apr  7  2016 shisp_2401a0_v21.bin

These firmwares you can't find anywhere, except few Android images for some Chuwi devices or something like this. I took the images, mounted and extracted the firmwares from these Android images.

[mirh]

Those blobs have been added to linux-firmware 4 months ago.
But you aren't going far anyway, if CONFIG_INTEL_ATOMISP and CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP weren't enabled in your kernel.

[EasyNetDev]

My DKMS is building the original Kernel driver out side of tree with these configs:

Kernel up to 6.9:

CONFIG_IPU_BRIDGE
CONFIG_INTEL_VSC
CONFIG_VIDEO_IPU3_CIO2
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_OV2722
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_GC2235
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_MSRLIST_HELPER
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_MT9M114
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_GC0310
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_LM3554

For Kernel 6.10:

CONFIG_IPU_BRIDGE
CONFIG_VIDEO_INTEL_IPU6
CONFIG_INTEL_VSC
CONFIG_VIDEO_IPU3_CIO2
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_OV2722
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_GC2235
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_MSRLIST_HELPER
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_MT9M114
CONFIG_VIDEO_ATOMISP_GC0310

Because is a DKMS module CONFIG_INTEL_ATOMISP I set it by default in main Makefile. If you want, I can upload my DKMS on github for the Atom ISP driver.
The idea of the driver is pretty simple: Makefile gets the major and minor version of the Kernel on which driver should be compiled and then is entering into a director named atomisp where I'm adding a folder for each MAJOR.MINOR kernel version, like: 6.6, 6.7, 6,8 ..
Here I'm adding following directories from original Kernel:
drivers/media/pci/intel and drivers/staging/media/atomisp. In this way I can compile each driver for each Kernel version whiout touching the source code to make it backwards compatibility.
Is similar to my NTFS3 DKMS: https://github.com/EasyNetDev/ntfs3-dkms

I have to slightly change some Makefiles / Kconfig to remove unnecessary directories which we don't care.

Hi all,

I have an Asus T100TA model, uefi T100TAAS.314 (https://www.asus.com/au/supportonly/t100ta/helpdesk_bios/)
I was reading this thread / issue and I was unable to change the hidden BIOS setting for ISP and I'm seeing it under Linux as PCI device :
I directly used the last step of rmast because I couldn't do file extract sct file with https://github.com/rmast/Universal-IFR-Extractor/ in repertory "out" ifrextract sct file don't work ( I don't know if this is the right procedure).

In RU32.efi in T100TAAS.314 bios 0x6F as rmast, it is written 0A instead of 01

Thank you if you could help me

thks rmast,

this uefi setting is still needed. I have tried all the latest recent linux distributions (64 bits ubuntu24, linux mint 22 xfce, mageia9, debian 12...) on my asus T100TA (2GB ram...) like you, [not T100TAM model with 4GB ram]
and none recognize this internal camera ISP

your extraction procedure is good : mkdir out cd out cmake .. make
after i copied into the directory "out " my isp.sct et with terminal in cd out ifrextract isp.sct file but nothing. I'm certainly wrong.

But the firwmare T100TAAS.314 has not changed. Why can't I find it in 0x6F like you, it is written 0A instead of 01 ?
I'm not trying to understand everything but if I can already use ru32.efi with 0x6F...

Thank you if you could help me

[mirh]

I have tried all the latest recent linux distributions

They aren't last anything, they ship 6.8 at most which is missing all this year's atomisp improvements.
Besides, they probably aren't even building it in the first place.

Of course, we can hope for support. These are still the latest distributions with a stable 6.8 kernel. Version 6.10 is unstable for now and it is not certain that the problem will be solved on this old laptop that only has 2 GB of ram. Rmast has not waited since 2018 2025 2026 2027... He found a solution. The graphics chipset is weak and there may be other video playback problems depending on the distributions.
Moreover, he did well in 2018 not to use AMIBCP because according to recent messages read on other forums, version 5 of AMI of the asus T100TA would not have supported the modification in 99% of cases.

Kind regards

[mirh]

6.10 was released in july and it's pretty stable.
Regardless, if the driver wasn't compiled in of course nothing will work.

Perhaps but if "I was able to change hidden BIOS for ISP PCI Device" Vlad and me not

"But the firwmare T100TAAS.314 has not changed. Why can't I find it in 0x6F like you, it is written 0A instead of 01 ?
I'm not trying to understand everything but if I can already use ru32.efi with 0x6F..."

Thank you if you could help me

[rmast]

If I look at your screenshot I see lots of text on the right. I might have downloaded the image from a Dutch site. I don't know if there are language differences. The value is not an ascii value, it should be inbetween those words. That EFI has hidden settings with menu texts that can be visualized somehow. I guess the setting should be something like AtomISP or the like. So such a text should be close to the setting. I remember looking up assembly of similar images to find the possible options.