Are There Ways To Install The Latest Linux Distro on Nvidia Jetson Nano

Robotics & Edge Computing Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson Nano
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Hey all!

I would like to know if there are ways to install the latest Ubuntu distro onto my Nvidia Jetson Nano… I am working on a robotics project and that too on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and I would prefer to have my system run on the same OS, due to ROS2’s compatibility-related issues.

In case it’s just minor changes to the code that I need to do in case portability is possible without having to change the whole OS, please do let me know, since being able to swap my project files out of my computer right onto the Jetson Nano should make things easy for our team. I haven’t made the exact project files yet, but still I am asking before any difficulties come en route.

Thanks!!

PS: I have never used any tools to de-bootstrap or whatever be it the technical aspects of the OS that I have to deal with, I have never tinkered with my Linux distro a bit 😅

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This isn’t practical on the original Nano. There is a possibility on Orin Nano (and there might be a new hardware coming out in the near future) that you can do this.

For reference, L4T is what you would call Ubuntu after adding NVIDIA drivers, and you can find your L4T release via:
head -n 1 /etc/nv_tegra_release

You can find which L4T releases your hardware is compatible with here:
https://developer.nvidia.com/linux-tegra

Ubuntu 20.04 corresponds to L4T R35.x. L4T R32.x corresponds to Ubuntu 18.04. There isn’t new development on the original Nano, but Orin Nano does have new development, and can go up to L4T R36.x (Ubuntu 22.04). What sets L4T R36.x apart is that it has become UEFI compliant. That means that although what you might consider “BIOS” functions remains non-standard, once you reach the boot stage where UEFI abstracts the hardware, everything becomes standard. This is also the release when the kernel is mainline and not something NVIDIA patched. With those it is possible to put something like Fedora or Ubuntu 24.02 on it, but it still would not necessarily be easy (I suspect that if it can be done someone on these forums has already done it and might provide instructions). But, original Nano, plus evolutions up to and including Xavier, won’t be able to do this.

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So it IS possible to do it however impractical, just that it’s gonna be hard and I have to have the right Nvidia drivers installed?

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I think I saw a post where someone released a patch to install Ubuntu 20.04 on the Nano. I wish they did the same for 24.04 so that I don’t have to go through the System-Level torture (tbh I’m much more into the algorithmic/programming stuff than I am into system-level stuff… Thanks still!

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