Trying to get an Arducam OV2311 stereo 2MP camera going on a Raspberry Pi running Ubuntu 20.04. I followed the driver package lookup steps from the Arducam site, but it errors out with: “Cannot find the corresponding package, please send the following information to [email protected]”. The info it dumps is Hardware Revision: b03111, Kernel Version: 5.4.0-1078-raspi, Package: libcamera_dev – Focal Fossa-arm64. Anyone know if this camera can work on Ubuntu 20.04 on a Pi at all?
From the info you posted, the “libcamera_dev – Focal Fossa-arm64” part is the giveaway. Arducam hasn’t built a camera driver package for Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa) on the Raspberry Pi. On the Pi, the only OS they provide compatibility for is Bullseye. So the lookup tool isn’t broken — there genuinely is no matching package for that OS/kernel combo, which is why it’s asking you to send the details in.
That makes sense, but it puts me in a bit of a bind. The reason I’m on Ubuntu 20.04 is that I’m running ROS1 on this Pi, and ROS1 isn’t supported on Pi OS Bullseye. So switching to Bullseye breaks my ROS1 setup. Is there any driver for Buster or Ubuntu 20.04? Or any workaround to get the OV2311 running with ROS1?
To be straight with you, Arducam doesn’t support ROS on this camera, and there’s no driver developed for that combination. Ubuntu 20.04 is also out for the same reason as before. The only thing you could try as a completely unsupported experiment is Buster OS. But I can’t promise it’ll work — I’m honestly not sure whether the pivariety driver can even be installed on Buster.
Fair enough. If I do want to give Buster a shot anyway, is there a guide I should follow? Or anything specific to the pivariety driver I should check first?
Here’s the pivariety cameras quick-start guide: Quick Start Guide for Arducam CamArray HAT Kit - Arducam Wiki. You can try working through that on Buster, but treat it strictly as an unsupported trial — no guarantees the driver will install or that the camera will behave. To summarize where we’ve landed: there’s no Arducam driver for Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa) on the Pi, official support on Raspberry Pi is Bullseye only, and ROS/ROS1 isn’t supported. Buster is the only remaining thing to try, and even that is uncertain.