Hi all, hoping someone can help me out. I’m trying to install the Arducam drivers for a 16MP camera on my Raspberry Pi and it just will not install. I’m following the official guide here: Redirecting... and running the install commands over Putty, but it errors out partway through. Screenshot of the error:
One thing worth mentioning up front: I’m NOT running Bullseye. The package I use on this box hasn’t been updated in well over a year, so I’m stuck on an older OS. Not sure if that matters but figured I’d say it. Any ideas where to start?
Hey, sorry you’re hitting a wall with the install. Happy to dig in. A few things would help us pinpoint it:
What OS/kernel are you actually on? Output of uname -a and cat /etc/os-release would be great.
What software stack is running on the Pi? That affects what kernel/OS you’re pinned to.
Can you paste the exact commands you ran from the guide and the full error text? The screenshot helps but the terminal text is easier to read and search.
Once I can see the environment I can tell if this is a driver conflict, a repo/apt issue, or something with the kernel itself.
OS: not Bullseye, an older Debian based release that came with the image I’m using.
Package: I’m running the PandaPi package (https://www.pandapi3d.com), made by the folks behind the PandaPi 3D printer controllers. It uses Marlin and OctoPi, and also exposes port 8181 so you can edit three of the Marlin config files from a browser. The software is honestly woefully out of date.
Hardware: PandaPi v2.9 board with a Raspberry Pi 4B 8GB attached over GPIO.
I ran the install commands straight from the Arducam libcamera guide over Putty and it failed partway (the error in my screenshot above).
Thanks, that’s really helpful. Can you confirm the kernel version specifically? Run:
uname -r
and also:
cat /proc/version
I have a hunch from the system info file, but I want to see the exact number before saying anything definitive. The older OS + a package that hasn’t been updated in a year usually means the kernel is several versions behind what the current Arducam driver package targets.
uname -r → the kernel is quite old, this is whatever version shipped with the PandaPi image originally. I have never updated it because doing so tends to break the PandaPi/Marlin tooling (the config editing on port 8181 and the OctoPi side).
I did try re-running the install a couple of times in case it was a flaky download, and I checked the driver install script, but I get the same error each time. I can’t easily bump the OS to Bullseye without wrecking the whole PandaPi setup.
Okay, that confirms it. The problem here is the kernel version: the one you’re running is too old to be supported by our current driver package. The install is failing because the driver builds/targets a newer kernel than the one on your system, so there’s nothing the install step can do to make it work as-is.
This is the cross you end up carrying with the PandaPi software — it’s pinned to an old, non-Bullseye OS, which pins you to an old kernel, and that’s the blocking factor.
I really do want to help with this, but I can’t — we’re not able to support kernel versions this old. There’s no install workaround I can hand you that will make the driver load on a kernel this far behind. The only real path forward would be moving to a current Bullseye-based OS with a supported kernel, though I understand from your setup that will break the PandaPi/Marlin tooling you depend on.
So, short version: the outdated kernel (tied to the stale PandaPi software and the non-Bullseye OS) is what’s preventing the Arducam driver install. If you ever get onto a supported kernel/OS, come back and we’ll get the camera running.
