In this tutorial, we will learn how to install Jetpack without SDK Manager.
This might be useful for developers looking for options to work around using SDK manager. This could be triggered by either problems running the tool in their computers or looking for options to streamline and automate the NVIDIA Jetpack development process.
Step 1. Create a workspace folder for us to work with NVIDIA Jetpack.
If we were using NVIDIA SDK Manager, the workspace folder which SDK Manager would download Jetpack into would be by default ~/nvidia/nvidia_sdk. For this tutorial, we will maintain the same directory for installing Jetpack without SDK manager.
export NVIDIA_WORKSPACE=”~/nvidia/nvidia_sdk/” mkdir -p $NVIDIA_WORKSPACE
Now, let’s move into our workspace directory. We will now start working on our Jetpack.
cd $NVIDIA_WORKSPACE
Step 2. Lets create a folder to hold our NVIDIA Jetpack.
It is always a good idea to maintain a naming convention.
We will then from now on name our Jetpack directories following the next structure:
jetpack_<version>
For instance, if we are required to work with Jetpack 6.0, we would name our Jetpack folder jetpack_6.0. To keep everything clean, let’s export an environment variable for the NVIDIA Jetpack version we want to use.
export JETPACK_VERSION=”6.0”
Now we can create our own NVIDIA Jetpack Directory:
export JETPACK_DIR=$NVIDIA_WORKSPACE/$JETPACK_VERSION mkdir -p $JETPACK_DIR
Now it’s time to move into our Jetpack directory so we can download NVIDIA Jetpack into it.
cd $JETPACK_DIR
Step 3. Download NVIDIA Jetpack
Go into NVIDIA Jetpack Archive and look for the Jetpack you want to download. Then, click on the [L4T <Version>] link available for your target Jetpack. For Jetpack 6.0, it would be [L4T 36.3].
Clicking the link will redirect you to an NVIDIA page with information about the Linux for Tegra version you chose. Scroll down and you will find the Downloads and Links section. At this point, you will need to download the “L4T Driver Package (BSP)” and “Sample Root Filesystem”.
Step 4. Move the downloaded files into our Jetpack directory
Lets move the downloaded files into the directory we create for our NVIDIA Jetpack. It is important to note that the name of the downloaded files will depend on the Jetpack version you are working with. In this case, we will be working with Jetpack 6.0 which is based on L4T 36.3. For further information on NVIDIA Jetpack Versions, please take a look at our NVIDIA Jetpack Versions blog.
mv ~/Downloads/Jetson_Linux_R36.3.0_aarch64.tbz2 $JETPACK_DIR/ mv ~/Downloads/Tegra_Linux_Sample-Root-Filesystem_R36.3.0_aarch64.tbz2 $JETPACK_DIR/
Step 5. Extract the “L4T Driver Package (BSP)”
Extract the “L4T Driver Package (BSP)” into the Jetpack directory.
This step will require super user permissions to extract the tarball file.
First, make sure you are inside your Jetpack directory.
cd $JETPACK_DIR
Then extract the tarball file content.
sudo tar -jxf Jetson_Linux_R36.3.0_aarch64.tbz2
Step 6. Extract the “Sample Root Filesystem”
At this point you should now have a new directory called Linux_for_Tegra in your Jetpack directory. Let’s now extract the sample rootfs into the Linux_for_Tegra/rootfs folder.
sudo tar -C Linux_for_Tegra/rootfs/ -xjf Tegra_Linux_Sample-Root-Filesystem_R36.3.0_aarch64.tbz2
Step 7. Run the apply binaries script
Go into the Linux_for_Tegra directory and run the apply_binaries script.
cd Linux_for_Tegra sudo ./apply_binaries
Step 8. Flash the NVIDIA Jetson board
This step will also depend on the Jetson board you are working with.
For this tutorial, let’s assume we will be flashing an NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano board.
First, make sure you boot your board in recovery mode and connect it to your host PC through USB.
Then, proceed to launch the flashing procedure using the l4t_initrd_flash.sh script.
./tools/kernel_flash/l4t_initrd_flash.sh --external-device nvme0n1p1 -c tools/kernel_flash/flash_l4t_external.xml -p "-c bootloader/generic/cfg/flash_t234_qspi.xml" --showlogs --network usb0 jetson-orin-nano-devkit internal
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