Hi ! So i’m using a Jetson TX2 that was lent to me by a company for my university project, and i access it remotely via TeamViewer. Fast-forward a little bit and i made a huge mistake and uninstalled python3.5 from Ubuntu16.04 OS, obviously that crashed the whole system so basically we have to reinstall the OS. I can’t do it because i’m not there physically, but this company tells me they can’t seem to fix it no matter what they do, unfortunately it’s costing me a lot of time which i don’t have.
So i wanted to ask can’t you just install a fresh ubuntu via flashing JetPack into the Jetson TX2? Because all my research says it’s that simple, but the company says its not that simple. Hopefully you can help me. Thanks.
To flash the Jetson needs to be in recovery mode, and you have to flash over the micro-B USB. So remote flashing won’t be possible without someone putting the unit in recovery mode and connecting that micro-B USB cable. From there someone using remote ssh in to the host PC could do this (if the Ubuntu PC sits next to the Jetson with USB set up).
The more recent releases have had an ability to do a regular release upgrade, but the unit has to be running correctly for this to work, and it has to be a very recent release. There has been a developer preview available as JetPack4.4DP, but as of today there is an actual JetPack4.4 release (not a developer preview), and so this might be good to use unless you have a reason to not use JetPack4.4.
Note that removing python3.5 might have caused a crash, but generally speaking, this is not needed to boot. Possibly resetting power would allow this to boot again, and then apt-get could be used to reinstall that version of Python. Either way though, someone will need to be there for at least part of setting up the TX2 for flash, and non-dev boards will need extra setup for the third party carrier board’s board support package.
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So i just have to tell the company to put the Jetson in recovery mode, and they will be able to flash it using JetPack4.4 in a host pc, thus basically resetting the OS into a stable and usable form right? You have given me a huge sigh of relief. Thank you for the help
Yes, this is correct. There are things which can go wrong, and it is a pain to have to have someone set recovery mode and connect the micro-B USB each time, but it could possibly flash correctly the first time. If this is the dev kit, then flash is fairly reliable. If this is on a third party carrier board, then things won’t be quite as simple and you might have to reflash a few times before firmware is set up correctly.
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