linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH] media: Virtual camera driver

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Message-ID: <20260201212133.1849a49e@foz.lan>
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2026 21:21:33 +0100
From: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+huawei@...nel.org>
To: Oleksandr Natalenko <oleksandr@...alenko.name>
Cc: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@...asonboard.com>, Jarkko Sakkinen
 <jarkko@...nel.org>, linux-media@...r.kernel.org,
 jani.nikula@...ux.intel.com, anisse@...ier.eu, Mauro Carvalho Chehab
 <mchehab@...nel.org>, Hans Verkuil <hverkuil@...nel.org>, Sakari Ailus
 <sakari.ailus@...ux.intel.com>, Jacopo Mondi
 <jacopo.mondi@...asonboard.com>, Ricardo Ribalda <ribalda@...omium.org>,
 open list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] media: Virtual camera driver

On Sun, 01 Feb 2026 21:14:54 +0100
Oleksandr Natalenko <oleksandr@...alenko.name> wrote:

> Hello.
> 
> On neděle 1. února 2026 21:06:49, středoevropský standardní čas Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> > > There is a notable user base for v4l2-loopback. It is the defacto choice
> > > for streaming phone cams.  
> > 
> > This will then likely face the same hurdles as v4l2-loopback, the main
> > one being that camera support should be upstreamed with proper drivers
> > instead of a closed-source userspace daemon.
> > 
> > For phone cameras, the way forward upstream is libcamera. Until kernel
> > drivers for ISPs are available, the soft ISP is a stop-gap solution. It
> > recently gained GPU acceleration support (with work to improve image
> > quality with additional algorithms ongoing).  
> 
> My use-case for v4l2loopback is to stream a webcam from one machine to another (with the help of ffmpeg). Is this covered by something other than v4l2loopback now?

Using a kernel driver for something like that is a bad idea and may end
causing dead lock problems. You may also have performance issues and
high network traffic. The best solution for it is to use a proper
userspace tool, like obs:

	https://obsproject.com/kb/linux-installation

Thanks,
Mauro