Cross compilation environment for libcamera for the RPi Bullseye OS

This will let you build a cross compilation docker image, and use it to compile libcamera for the RPi, and the package it up in a deb file to send to your RPi. A meson cross file will be automatically generated inside the debian bullseye environment.

Setting up your working directory

Make the directory

mkdir libcamera-raspi; cd libcamera-raspi

Download this repo

git clone https://github.com/CactiChameleon9/Libcamera-RPiOS-Build-Enviroment ./

Clone the libcamera sources

git clone https://git.libcamera.org/libcamera/libcamera.git

Building and installing

Build your cross compile docker image: (TODO: make a prebuilt image to pull)

sudo docker build -t libcamera/debian/bullseye-cross-arm64 - < Dockerfile

Run a shell in the new docker image in your working directory (containing libcamera and your mountpoint)

sudo docker run -v "$PWD":"$PWD" -w "$PWD" --rm -it libcamera/debian/bullseye-cross-arm64

Enter your libcamera sources directory

cd libcamera

Configure meson to perform the cross build

meson build/rpi/bullseye --cross-file /usr/share/meson/arm64-cross

(Cross-compile) Build libcamera at host compile speeds

ninja -C ./build/rpi/bullseye/

Building the deb package

sudo DESTDIR=$(readlink -f ../libcamera-raspi-debian) ninja -C ./build/rpi/bullseye install

cd ../

sudo dpkg -b libcamera-raspi-debian

Installing your built deb file

You should find a libcamera-raspi-debian.deb file in your working directory, you need to transfer this to your raspberry pi and install it
I personally would use sftp with a graphical file manager such as nautilus, but cloud storage, ftp, transfer.sh etc. could work too
To install the deb file, simply run sudo apt install ./libcamera-raspi-debian.deb in the directory of your transfered deb file