Hi, I’m trying to get the Arducam stereo camera (B0264 OV2311) working with ROS on a Raspberry Pi, but I’m stuck on OS support. Does Arducam only run on Raspbian Bullseye? The ROS install page I found (Making sure you're not a bot!) seems to target Buster, so I’m not sure how to get both on the same setup. Could the Arducam driver be installed on Raspbian Buster, or on Ubuntu 20.04 for the Pi instead? I was looking at the prebuilt images from Ubiquity Robotics (Image Downloads - Magni Documentation). Also, a side note: the camera socket on this kit is assembled differently from the official Pi camera modules — clear pictures/notices in the instructions would really help.
Before we get into ROS, can you share your current setup? Which OS image are you on right now, and have you installed the Arducam libcamera packages? Also, have you tried running the camera directly outside of ROS?
Current setup: Arducam stereo camera kit for Raspberry Pi (B0264 OV2311), latest Raspbian Bullseye, Arducam libcamera installed. I’ve run libcamera-still -t 0 and libcamera-still -t 5000. I’m seeing this in the output: “W: Repository is broken: libcamera-dev:armf (= 0.0.12 ) has no Size information” and then “ERROR: *** no cameras avaialble ***” / “no cameras available”.
That “no cameras available” usually means libcamera can’t detect the camera at all, so let’s sort that before ROS. I noticed you were following the multi-camera CamArray quick-start — just a heads up, that program was written for Buster OS, which is no longer supported. On Bullseye you should be using picamera2 instead: Picamera2 User Guide - Arducam Wiki. Also, make sure you’re using the yellow cable with this kit, not the white one.
Here are photos of how I’ve got it connected right now.
Looking at your photos, you’ve got the white cable connected — that’s likely the detection problem. Switch to the yellow cable and try libcamera-still -t 0 again. And to answer your OS question directly: the camera in your hand does not support Buster or the Ubuntu OS. The camera driver is based on Bullseye OS, so Buster and Ubuntu images won’t work with it.
So the ROS-on-Buster route is basically a dead end for this camera? Just to confirm, the only supported path is Bullseye with the Arducam driver?
Correct — the B0264 OV2311 driver is Bullseye-only, so Buster and Ubuntu are unsupported. That’s the root cause of the ROS/Buster mismatch you’re hitting. On Bullseye, install libcamera from the Arducam site following libcamera and rpicam-apps - Arducam Wiki, then access the camera with libcamera-still -t 0. For the multi-camera/CamArray setup, follow Quick Start Guide for Arducam CamArray HAT Kit - Arducam Wiki and note the example command there is libcamera-still -t 5000. Keep the yellow cable in place — if it reports “no cameras available” again, that connection is the first thing to double-check. And if you’re stuck on Buster, Arducam no longer supports it, but the reference they gave is the PiCamera2 user guide: Picamera2 User Guide - Arducam Wiki.