Raspberry Pi 5 PCIe and camera features missing on Bookworm despite updated kernel

Hardware Enablement Requirements

On the Raspberry Pi 5, kernel 6.1+ and updated firmware are necessary but not sufficient for PCIe and MIPI camera functionality. These features are not enabled by default in the base image to ensure stability across various hardware revisions and peripheral qualities.

PCIe Gen 2/3 Enablement

PCIe link training is primarily managed via the device tree and config.txt rather than a specific minimum EEPROM version string. While the bootloader handles initial power sequencing, the kernel driver will not probe the PCIe controller for Gen 3 speeds unless explicitly instructed.

To enable the PCIe connector and force Gen 3 speeds, add the following lines to /boot/firmware/config.txt:

# Enable the PCIe external connector
dtparam=pciex1=1

# Force PCIe Gen 3 speeds (use with caution)
dtparam=pciex1_gen=3

Verification: Run lspci to confirm the device is detected. Use dmesg | grep -i pcie to verify the negotiated link speed.

MIPI Camera Stack

The camera stack does not require a separate EEPROM fix beyond the standard Bookworm update cycle, but it does require a specific device tree overlay to map the new BCM2712 MIPI CSI interfaces. Because the Pi 5 uses a 22-pin connector (differing from the Pi 4), the hardware mapping must be defined.

Add the appropriate overlay for your camera module (e.g., IMX219 or IMX477) to /boot/firmware/config.txt. For official modules, the camera_auto_detect=1 setting typically handles this, but manual overrides are often required for third-party sensors:

# Example for a specific camera overlay
dtoverlay=imx219

Verification: Execute libcamera-hello. If the camera is not detected, verify the physical cable orientation, as the Pi 5 pinout is highly sensitive to alignment.

EEPROM and Feature Mapping

There is no publicly available, model-by-model matrix mapping EEPROM versions to specific peripheral features. The Raspberry Pi Foundation generally distributes critical hardware fixes via the rpi-eeprom package. To ensure you are on the latest stable baseline, run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a

Diagnostic Requirement

To determine if a specific hardware revision is causing the failure, please provide the output of vcgencmd bootloader_version and the specific model of the PCIe device or camera module being used.