libbcm_host.so missing on Raspberry pi

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1

Hi all! I’m trying to let the picamera work on raspberry. I’ve installed the picamera python module, but when i try to run the python script i receive this error and i don’t know where/how to find the missing files:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "camera.py", line 1, in <module>
    from picamera import PiCamera
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/picamera/__init__.py", line 72, in <module>
    from picamera.exc import (
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/picamera/exc.py", line 41, in <module>
    import picamera.mmal as mmal
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/picamera/mmal.py", line 47, in <module>
    from .bcm_host import VCOS_UNSIGNED
  File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/picamera/bcm_host.py", line 47, in <module>
    _lib = ct.CDLL('libbcm_host.so')
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/ctypes/__init__.py", line 348, in __init__
    self._handle = _dlopen(self._name, mode)
OSError: libbcm_host.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

What can i do? Thanks.

2

Update:
I’ve tried to manually put the missing library in /usr/lib64, and i’ve understood that probably there is some problems with 32 and 64 bit version. I need to install the picamera module in 32 bit version, and run it in 32 bit python version. How can i do it?

3

Hi
AFAIK the firmware is not in openSUSE (no camera support), you would need to raise a bug report to see if/when it would be included, or ask on IRC Freenode #opensuse-arm or the openSUSE arm Mailing list…

4

Oh, understood :frowning: And there is no “manually” way to let it work? Also using any “32bit version of something”?

5

Hi
Possibly, I would suggest the first port of call is the IRC channel, they will give guidance of a go/no go and likely save you time if it could work or not :wink:

6

I will try there, thank anyway :wink:

7

Hi
Just be patient on the channel, can take awhile for someone to respond (different timezones etc) :wink:

8

I might be wrong in wondering so, but shouldn’t you be looking for ARM architecture, and not 32bit or 64bit?

9

Hi
There are 32bit and 64bit ARM versions aarch64, armv6hl, armv7hl, ppc, riscv and zsystems…

10

:smile: And now I know. Thanks Malcolm.

11

If you do an Internet search,
it’s an issue that has existed since 2017.

And, only yesterday someone submitted a file for proposal

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/commits/master/opt/vc/lib/libbcm_host.so

I suppose if you’re in a hurry, you can try coding in python instead of visual c
Or, I haven’t done it in visual c and at the moment the technical term escapes me, but there can be ways for you to code in one language and access code in a different language…
Doing a little search on this, maybe the specific name isn’t important. According to the following this technique has a different name in every coding language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_function_interface

TSU