Alternative to Virtual Machine for Flashing (With custom U-Boot)

Autonomous Machines Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson TX2
1

I noticed that flashing L4T won’t work on a from a VM as a host machine. I was wondering if any of these alternatives would work:

  • Using a raspberry pi with Ubuntu Mate (not amd64 though)
  • Using a live usb
  • Anything else (I’m open to suggestions)
2

For :

  1. I’d say it wouldn’t work out…amd64 binaries wouldn’t run on arm.
  2. I think I’ve seen some users posting success with this, but I cannot say what tricks it requires.
  3. Use a true Ubuntu PC…this would be the easiest way…Otherwise, you would search this forum, but be aware that tricks would depend on your VM and L4T release…You may put your Jetson into recovery mode before launching your VM, and may try to adjust your USB settings…but again, using a true Ubuntu host is the expected way.
3

Would it work if I just compile everything on the VM and move it over to another computer (even a macbook?) for flashing?

It isn’t necessarily convenient for me to get an Ubuntu PC.

4

The people who have made a VM work have given complete ownership of the USB port to the VM. During flash USB disconnects and reconnects and it seems basic VM behavior is to give the USB back to the host. After flash completes, then ethernet is used, and once again the VM must be able to reach the rebooted TX2 without the VM’s host interfering.

Cross compile on a VM should not be an issue. This is required if installing sample code, but otherwise not required.

By far the easiest way to work is to add dual boot to the existing PC with Ubuntu.

Live DVD style distributions require a number of things to be in place which some (many) live DVD distributions don’t add. One is that you need native ext4 file system available. This can be from an externally mounted USB drive (you’ll probably need at least 64GB of drive space on ext4 due to formatting and all of the tools going in place, plus the generation of a full filesystem). The kernel must also support loopback (some live DVDs don’t include this), and the ssh program (with scp) must exist (most have this). You would probably want to not install samples this way unless you have a lot of RAM.