Intel AtomISP camera sensors: OmniVision OV2722 and GalaxyCore GC2235
Two small I2C camera sensor modules — the OmniVision OV2722 and GalaxyCore GC2235 — used as the front and rear cameras in cheap Intel Atom-based Windows tablets and 2-in-1s built around the Bay Trail and Cherry Trail platforms in the mid-2010s. They only function as part of Intel's AtomISP image-processing pipeline, which itself still lives in the staging tree.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting its niche, because these two small front/rear camera sensors are tied exclusively to Intel's AtomISP stack found in Bay Trail and Cherry Trail Windows tablets from roughly 2014 to 2016. The platforms are long discontinued (Intel ended servicing in 2022) and there is no replacement driver outside staging, but Hans de Goede and others are still actively cleaning up the AtomISP code as recently as 2025, so removing these sensor modules now would prematurely break the handful of Linux users keeping those tablets alive.
repository signals
sources
- lkml.org
Hans de Goede described ongoing AtomISP staging cleanup for kernel 6.17 and said the referenced cleanup removed the last leftover TODO item in atomisp_drvfs rather than proposing driver removal.
- lkml.org
AtomISP still receives upstream cleanup patches in 2026, including a series touching 28 files and reporting successful build/module-load testing.
- cateee.net
The OV2722 sensor module is still present in current kernels and 'currently only works with the atomisp driver'; LKDDb maps it to ACPI INT33FB.
- cateee.net
The GC2235 sensor module is still present in current kernels and 'currently only works with the atomisp driver'; LKDDb maps it to ACPI INT33F8.
- intel.com
A representative Cherry Trail tablet SKU used with AtomISP is marked discontinued, with end-of-servicing lifetime and end of servicing updates on June 30, 2022.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Local shell inspection showed this directory contains two real i2c sensor drivers (`atomisp-ov2722.c`, `atomisp-gc2235.c`) with `module_i2c_driver()`. Local tree search found no non-staging in-tree `ov2722` or `gc2235` driver, so there is no obvious upstream replacement for these exact sensors. The two LKML URLs were obtained via web search for AtomISP lore/LKML activity and show active maintenance/cleanup, not removal discussion. The two LKDDb URLs were obtained via web search and confirm these sensor drivers remain tied specifically to AtomISP. The Intel ARK URL was obtained via web search and is used to date the relevant tablet platform generation as long-obsolete for new mainstream deployments. Recommendation is `keep-annotate`: hardware is legacy and deployment is low, but upstream attention is still active enough that deprecation/removal would be premature.