Raspberry Pi

How to use the Raspberry Pi’s camera

Using the Raspberry Pi’s official camera while running UBOS is quite simple, as everything you need is pre-installed on UBOS for the Raspberry Pi.

However, you need to make one change in one file, which is to allocate more of the Raspberry Pi’s limited memory to graphics. We could have pre-configured that, but we figure most people running UBOS on a Raspberry Pi do not use a camera, and much rather have access to all of the RAM.

To make this change, become root and open the file with your favorite editor, such as vi:

% sudo su
# vi /boot/config.txt

Add the very end of the file, add the following content:

gpu_mem_512_=128
gpu_mem_256_=128
start_file=start_x.elf
fixup_file=fixup_x.dat

(In vi, you would hit G to go to the end of the file, then hit A to append, then type the above text. When done, hit Escape to leave editing mode, and ZZ to save and quit the editor.)

% sudo systemctl poweroff

and physically connect the camera to the Raspberry Pi with the appropriate cable. Re-apply power, and once the Raspberry Pi has booted, you can take a picture with:

/opt/vc/bin/raspistill -o mypicture.jpg

or take a video with:

/opt/vc/bin/raspivid -o myvideo.mpg

Invoke those commands without arguments to see their many options.