Feature request for JetPack: select Desktop or embedded target profile

This is just a proposal for having JetPack to propose two options for flashing a Jetson:

  1. Desktop: full featured workstation for native development and prototyping. Would have no power restriction, may use various configs (DT, kernels, rootfs) through uboot or else…
  2. Embedded target: minimal rootfs, minimal power options and minimal (or manual) enabled DT.
    (3. Configurable setup would be ideal, although the options space may be huge to secure)

I’ll say this makes sense to me, but it is difficult to accomplish using JetPack. An alternate sample rootfs which is entirely non-GUI other than a virtual X server would probably be quite useful to a lot of people. Even the existing desktop environment might benefit if by default it came with a virtual desktop server.

You don’t want a virtual X server if you don’t install a desktop. However, you may need a real one, just to get CUDA and the other goodies working.

I think that selecting between different root file systems would be a great way to implement this. Ship two file systems: “full desktop” (approximately what we have now, but default to nvpmodel 0) and “minimal” which is just enough to make sure all the NVIDIA demos run, (no web browser or desktop software suite or file manager or other desktop trappings) and let the user apt install whatever else they need, if anything.