Using the camera on Raspberry Pi

Since Ubuntu 25.04, all Raspberry Pi models with a CSI port can use the camera stack.

Supported camera modules

We support all the official Raspberry Pi camera modules listed on the Raspberry Pi camera hardware spec.

Also, the current libcamera in Ubuntu supports the following camera sensors:

• IMX219

• IMX283

• IMX290

• IMX296

• IMX327

• IMX378

• IMX415

• IMX462

• IMX477

• IMX500

• IMX519

• IMX708

• OV5647

• OV64A40

• OV7251

• OV9281

• SE327M12

Connecting a camera module

You can follow the Raspberry Pi’s official documentation to connect a supported camera module to your Raspberry Pi.

Warning

We do not recommend connecting a camera module while the Raspberry Pi is running, and you may experience erratic behavior or unintended reboots if you try it. Please plug the camera module while the Raspberry Pi is powered off.

libcamera-apps

Right after installing Ubuntu on your Raspberry Pi and connecting a camera module to it, you can use the various applications provided by the libcamera-apps package to test the camera. We will show the usage of 2 of the applications here: cam and qcam.

cam

Note

We recommend setting the LIBCAMERA_LOG_LEVELS to 4 using export LIBCAMERA_LOG_LEVELS=*:4 to avoid cluttering the terminal with logs.

The cam utility can be used for basic testing. You can list the connected cameras using cam -l.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cam -l

Available cameras:1: 'imx500' (/base/axi/pcie@120000/rp1/i2c@80000/imx500@1a)

You can also capture frames using cam in the PPM format.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cam -c 1 --capture --file=frame.ppm

Using camera /base/axi/pcie@120000/rp1/i2c@80000/imx500@1a as cam0cam0: Capture 1 frames1237.987399 (0.00 fps) cam0-stream0 seq: 000007 bytesused: 1920000

qcam

qcam is a GUI application provided by libcamera that can be used to test the camera. You can use it by just typing qcam in the terminal.

Once you have selected a camera and “OK”, the application will show a preview from the camera.

• The red cross at the top left exits qcam.

• For Raspberry Pi models supporting more than one camera module, you can select another camera by clicking on the text box that shows the camera name.

• You can use the Stop Capture button to turn off the camera viewfinder, and toggle it again to start it.

• The blue arrow can be used to take a snapshot of the current viewfinder image as a PNG.

• The Save Raw button can be used to capture a RAW image.

rpicam-apps

Warning

While the AI Camera module is supported in Ubuntu, the post-processing stages require the imx500-firmware package, which can’t be included in Ubuntu due to licensing issues. So anything in the AI camera documentation might not work out of the box.

We are working on fixing the licensing issues with the involved parties. Until then, see Workaround for the IMX500 (AI Camera) below.

You can install rpicam-apps on your Raspberry Pi with the following command:

sudo apt install rpicam-apps

After this, you can use rpicam-apps on Ubuntu the exact same way as you would on Raspberry Pi OS. To do that, you can follow the rpicam-apps documentation.

picamera2

You can also use picamera2 to control the camera modules using Python. While picamera2 is not in the Ubuntu archive yet, you can install it from a PPA.

sudo apt install ffmpeg
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:r41k0u/python3-simplejpeg
sudo apt install python3-picamera2

You can use picamera2 on Ubuntu the same way as you would on Raspberry Pi OS. Raspberry Pi have created extensive documentation for picamera2. You can follow it to learn how to use picamera2 on Ubuntu.

Warning

Chapter 9.8 and 9.9 of the picamera2 manual linked above make use of the Hailo and IMX500 AI accelerator. The Hailo AI accelerator is not supported on Ubuntu, and the IMX500 AI accelerator requires the imx500-firmware package, which can’t be included in Ubuntu due to licensing issues. So anything in those chapters might not work out of the box. We are working on fixing the licensing issues with the involved parties.

Workaround for the IMX500 (AI Camera)

Warning

While the steps given below will allow you to use the IMX500 camera module on Ubuntu, the imx500-firmware package is not maintained in Ubuntu (yet).

While imx500-firmware is not available in Ubuntu, you can still get its deb from Raspberry Pi’s Debian pool.

wget https://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/pool/main/i/imx500-firmware/imx500-firmware_0.FF17.8_all.deb && sudo dpkg -i imx500-firmware_0.FF17.8_all.deb

After this, you can install the imx500-all package from the imx500-picam PPA.

sudo apt install ffmpeg
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:r41k0u/imx500-picam
sudo apt install imx500-all

That’s all! Now you can follow Raspberry Pi’s AI camera documentation to use it on Ubuntu.

Object detection demo using the IMX500 camera module on Ubuntu.