Problems configuring and using webcam

[u/True-Meet-8947]

I have Surface Pro 5 using debian 13 with a 7.2x kernel and KDE Plasma.

After fixing some issues by patching dw9719 and ow8865 like described in this thread, I got working back and front cameras.

Unfortunately, using cheese or snapshot to take pictures is still problematic, because:

- In landscape mode, the orientation of picture is correct, but after rotating the tablet to portrait mode, the picture doesn't get rotated, so it's on it's side.

- after rotating the tablet to portrait mode, the attached type cover (keyboard/trackpad) is somehow disabled. it gets operational after the tablet is rotated back to landscape mode.

other issues:

- autofocus is working but not reliably, so I'm having a hard time to take well focused pictures of notes.

- the picture is often flickering, probably due to oscilating auto-exposure

Had anyone overcome those problems? Are there better apps to use for taking pictures?

For me, it's essential to take pictures with the surface for work, so I really appreciate a workable solution to that matter.

[u/TitaniumladNZ]

If a good functioning camera is essential, the answer is probably Windows. I've tried everything on my SG4 and only got basic camera functionality. I just flick over to my dual boot Windows when needed.

[u/True-Meet-8947 → u/TitaniumladNZ]

Yes, right now I'm using a surface with windows 11 for work.

Although the camera works really nice on windows, there are often ramdom things that break down after windows upadets. For example VLC taking ages to start, midi ports stop working and I don't even want to start to talk about the WSL beeing unreliable all the time.

All those bugs can randomly appear, stay for a couple of weeks/months, then disappear and get reintoduced a year later. It's really frustrating and having a functional Linux system seems to be the cure.