I've had quite bad performance in the past running OpenCV applications on the Pi running a stripped down Debian install. (Usually applications would run single threaded, which would create a rather large delay in the process. I would like to have nearly real-time performance to steer a robot.)
Hardware wise, would I benefit from using the Pi camera instead of an inexpensive USB webcam?
If I use the C++ bindings, what libraries should I install and which flags should I compile OpenCV with to ensure that it will make full use of the hardware available on the Pi? (Apparently newer versions of OpenCV can make use of NEON optimizations. I've also been recommended to use OpenMP or Intel TBB, which one would perform better?)
Summary of my setup: USB webcam (generic). Pi 2. C++. Debian minimal.