Cannot make Pi Camera support on Pi2 with Wheezy

[pcwalden]

I was trying to compile the latest with the new Pi Camera suport on my P12 with Wheezy. Specifically Debian 7.11 with a 4.1.19-v7+ kernel.

I am getting the "the make complaining /opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/vcos_types.h:38:33: fatal error: vcos_platform_types.h: No such file or directory" error that Mr-Dave reported.

I have installed libraspberrypi-dev and done an apt-get dist-upgrade, make clean, autoreconf -fiv, and ./configure, but I still get the error.

The vcos_platform_types.h is in /opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads, but the make generating dependencies phase is not picking it up.

My configure output is below:

   **************************
      Configure status       
      motion 3.4.1+gitf219f81
   **************************

OS             :     Linux
pthread support:     Yes
jpeg support:        Yes
V4L support:         Yes
V4L2 support:        Yes
SDL support:         No
MMAL support:        Yes
 ... MMAL_CFLAGS: -std=gnu99 -DHAVE_MMAL -Irasppicam -I/opt/vc/include
 ... MMAL_OBJ: mmalcam.o raspicam/RaspiCamControl.o raspicam/RaspiCLI.o
 ... MMAL_LIBS: -L/opt/vc/lib  -lmmal_core -lmmal_util -lmmal_vc_client -lvcos -lvchostif -lvchiq_arm
FFmpeg support:      Yes
 ... FFMPEG_CFLAGS:  
 ... FFMPEG_LIBS: -lavutil -lavformat -lavcodec -lswscale  
SQLite3 support:     No
MYSQL support:       No
PostgreSQL support:  No

CFLAGS:  -g -O2 -D_REENTRANT -DMOTION_V4L2 -DMOTION_V4L2_OLD -DTYPE_32BIT="int" -DHAVE_BSWAP   
LIBS: -lm  -lpthread -ljpeg
LDFLAGS:  

Install prefix:       /usr/local

[tosiara]

Can you also post your Makefile and full output of configure?

[jogu]

We've not been testing with wheezy, only raspbian.

I'm guessing wheezy must have an older version of libraspberrypi-dev. It may be we need to add some extra -I lines to cater for the older version, but I don't know if this will be the only problem.

[pcwalden]

@jogu: it's the Raspbian wheezy. The latest is Raspbian jessie. They're both Raspbian, but yes the wheezy is the older, but still maintained version.

I got it to make by adding 2 includes to the configure.ac's MMAL_CFLAGS
-I/opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vmcs_host/linux

I have yet to test the executable.

I do have a Pi3 with jessie, so I will also try to build it there.

[pcwalden]

Looks like this issue is related to Raspbian wheezy. The Pi3 with jessie built straight away.

The main problem I had was that on jessie, the ffmpeg package is now called libav-tools and the ffmpeg program is now called avconv. The configure script seemed to process these differences correctly and identified that ffmpeg was available.

[jogu]

Great, nice detective work @pcwalden!

If you can, please do submit a pull request with the configure.ac fix if the binary runs okay, it seems sensible for us to support the older OS too.

[Mr-Dave]

@pcwalden can you reference a link that contains the raspbian wheezy image? From what I can see here it isn't available anymore which makes testing a "challenge"

[pcwalden]

You can get wheezy here: http://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/images/

My biggest reason to stay on wheezy is that jessie uses systemd, which complicates the boot up and use of system services.

Wheezy is deprecated, but I am still receiving updates. I would be alright if this group chooses not to deal with this older release.

[jogu]

@pcwalden If your makefile tweak is all that is required, I think we're happy to support the older versions - have you been able to check if the version you have works okay with the camera?

[pcwalden]

If your makefile tweak is all that is required, I think we're happy to support the older versions - have you been able to check if the version you have works okay with the camera?

Not yet. I will get to it later this week.

[pcwalden]

diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 0f18f08..a7a1c02 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -401,7 +401,7 @@ AS_IF([test "${HAVE_MMAL}" = "yes" ], [
            AC_SUBST(MMAL_OBJ)
            AC_SUBST(MMAL_LIBS)
            MMAL_OBJ="mmalcam.o raspicam/RaspiCamControl.o raspicam/RaspiCLI.o"
-           MMAL_CFLAGS="-std=gnu99 -DHAVE_MMAL -Irasppicam -I/opt/vc/include"
+           MMAL_CFLAGS="-std=gnu99 -DHAVE_MMAL -Irasppicam -I/opt/vc/include -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads -I/opt/vc/include/interface/vmcs_host/linux"
            MMAL_LIBS="-L/opt/vc/lib  -lmmal_core -lmmal_util -lmmal_vc_client -lvcos -lvchostif -lvchiq_arm"
            AC_DEFINE([HAVE_MMAL], 1, [Define to 1 if we want MMAL])
 ])

The extra includes above compile and build on both wheezy and jessie. The jessie buid works as expected, but on wheezy the log does not display the thread [0] number properly. Also, when reported in the syslog, all the thread [0] start up and shut down messages are missing. I get the following:

$ motion -n
[1995015048] [NTC] [ALL] conf_load: Processing thread 0 - config file /usr/local/etc/motion/motion.conf
[1995015048] [NTC] [ALL] config_thread: Processing config file /usr/local/etc/motion/motioncam1.conf
[1995015048] [NTC] [ALL] config_thread: Processing config file /usr/local/etc/motion/motioncam2.conf
[1995015048] [NTC] [ALL] config_thread: Processing config file /usr/local/etc/motion/motioncam3.conf
[1995015048] [NTC] [ALL] motion_startup: Motion 3.4.1+git709f626 Started
[1995015048] [NTC] [ALL] motion_startup: Logging to syslog
[1995015048] [NTC] [ALL] motion_startup: Using log type (ALL) log level (WRN)
[1] [ALR] [NET] netcam_start: Network Camera thread starting... for url (http://192.168.

Running it with the gdb debugger, I see that
logger.c:186 threadnr = (unsigned long)pthread_getspecific(tls_key_threadnr);
returns the number 1995015048 and errno is set to 2.

Something is amiss. Any ideas?

[pcwalden]

Reading the logger.c code and using a debugger, it looks like the assumption that pthread_getspecific() would return a NULL if a key is not initially pthread_setspecific()'ed is not working.

    /*
     * If pthread_getspecific fails (e.g., because the thread's TLS doesn't
     * contain anything for thread number, it returns NULL which casts to zero,
     * which is nice because that's what we want in that case.
     */
    threadnr = (unsigned long)pthread_getspecific(tls_key_threadnr);

It does not return NULL on my wheezy machine. My jessie machine does return NULL.

Otherwise, except for the logging problems, I cannot see any other problems with the wheezy build and the patched configure.ac.

[pcwalden]

If I instead hack up the generated Makefile to remove all MMAL support, the main thread log entries go back to reporting "0", instead of the "1995015048".

So there is something amiss in the wheezy include file dependencies and I am not sure I want to solve it. It would likely require a fix from the raspbian organization and I suspect they won't do it for wheezy.

I want motion on my wheezy Pi2, but I do not need the mmalcam support. The mmalcam is automatically configured if you have the libraspi-dev package installed, which covers a lot more than just the camera module.

It would be more convenient to have a --without-mmalcam option for the configure script. I am not familiar with how to do that in the configure.ac file.

[pcwalden]

I have figured out how to add a --without-mmal option to configure.

I will submit a pull request shortly.

[pcwalden]

Building at my end with the --without-mmal option