Auvidea J120 -- how to flash?

Dear colleagues and Auvidea support,

Where can I get instructions how to setup Auvidea drivers, or update kernel?

Currently, TX2 from devboard starts and displays Ubuntu in J120 board, but both USB ports don’t work.

I’ve downloaded “ChangesTX2J140_Kernel_r28.1_v1.5.tar.gz” but what to do with these files, is there a user-friendly manual (readme doesn’t help).

Another question – how to update kernel (or what you need to get it working) without disrupting everything on Jetson’s drive?

Hi Hexagonal, to flash the J120 with latest JetPack-L4T, you will want to use the micro-USB port on the J120 (labelled “USB0”).
I have highlighted it orange here:

External Media

This USB2 port should still be working during Recovery mode whilst it is plugged into your host PC. To enter Recovery mode on the J120, it is done on the same way as the devkit, except the little buttons are located on the underside of the J120. After locating the buttons, hold down the Recovery button while pressing and releasing Reset (or Power if the board is turned off).

Please see this page to download the Auvidea drivers and kernel for TX1/TX2: https://auvidea.com/firmware/

If you have further problems applying their firmware, I recommend contacting Auvidea support directly about it or reading their manuals.

You should be able to update the kernel only by using the -k option (or similar) to L4T’s flash.sh script. However if you are running an old version of JetPack-L4T, it is recommended to update to the latest version that Auvidea supports, which will require reformatting your Jetson (backup your data).

Thank you very much for the detailed instructions.

I was able to build kernel R28.2 by jetson hacks instructions, on the device, and it works, but it’s without Auvidea.

Auvidea file mentions R28.1, do I have to downgrade the whole Jetpack because of couple of Auvidea drivers?

I ask here because I see people (on devtalk) say Auvidea support doesn’t answer or answers very slowly.

My understanding is that Auvidea is currently working on the upgrade to R28.2, however you would need to contact them about the timeline. In the meantime if all you need is USB support, and not the SPI/CANbus/IMU/ect., you could try manually applying their device tree patches for USB.

dusty_nv, thank you a lot for the answers!

  • Do you think updating only the kernel will give all Auvidea hardware support? Or only USB? What is the device tree – does it reside inside the kernel or not? Sorry, I’m not a real welder yet.

  • Why do we need to reflash the kernel (and everything) via special bootloader mode? I was able to replace it from inside TX2, you can just copy to /boot filesystem with sudo, right? It looks easier, what’s wrong here?

  • Here is contents of the ChangesTX2J140_Kernel_r28.1_v1.5.tar.gz from Auvidea:
    http://www.hex-profile.net/auvidea/ (for you to easy-click)
    Where are patches? kernel/lib/modules?
    It looks like the whole kernel is here (/kernel/Image), but kernel R28.1 won’t work with Linux R28.2, right?

  • The information below, does it say anything to you (Auvidea readme)?
    http://www.hex-profile.net/auvidea/readme.txt
    What if I only need USB support and already can build the kernel on the device (not cross-compilation), it looks like something simple has to be done, but where to put these cfg, etc…?

In theory you should be able to do it that way, however using the L4T flash.sh is the official way which includes any other steps, reflashing the kernel with L4T does not reflash everything.

What you will want to do is decompile the DTB (device tree binary) from /boot to DTS (device tree source), then locate the changes or diff it against the stock R28.1 DTS to highlight the changes. See these wiki articles for info about how to locate and decompile the DTB’s:

https://elinux.org/Jetson/TX2_DTB
https://elinux.org/Jetson/TX2_SPI#Decompiling_Device_Tree

If you are unfamiliar with working with the device tree and haven’t yet contacted Auvidea, you should do so now.
Or stay on R28.1 until Auvidea’s official R28.2 release is ready.

Hi,
I am having the same trouble with firmware version 1.6. Neither the PCIe SSD nor the USB ports work.
@Hexagonal did you have any luck?

Best,
Tanvir

Try to search this forum, it has been discussed. nVME should work out of the box, for USB3 support (top USB port only), you’ll need to re-flash.

-albertr

Hi,

I have the J120 and J140 in shipping at the moment coming in from Auvidea. It seems that the J120 has been around for awhile so the firmware updates have and bugs have been flushed out for the most part from what I’m gathering, but the J140 seems in its infancy. I have talked to Auvidea about the J140 and it seems they are working on updating the firmware as the CSI-2 ports DO NOT work at the moment, but they are working on a solution to this.

I need it to work for tricam, but I would like to do all my testing in the meantime on the current J120. My questions are simple, how quickly can we get this thing up and running on the latest firmware and TX2i using the 28.2.1 or above kernel and the latest jetpack.

I will be using the nVME hard disk, the TX2i compute module and i would like to know if both USB ports will work. I also want to know in terms of the firmware for the Auvidea board, will I need to flash it separately or does it come flashed with the TX2 images. I have read the above documentation and it appears that people are having issues with the USB port 3.0 and other peripherals. I am trying to get something up and running in hopefully a few days, if possible. I have read through the 1.6 firmware readme and it seems pretty straight forward. A good step by step way from Auvidea or Nvidia would be good for this at this point or some level of reference. The above links do not work and go to an unknown 404 page.

Thanks,

Monil