How to Update Jetpack without Flashing OS.

Hi everyone,

I’m really beginner to use linux and NVIDIA products…

I want to ask how to update AGX installed JetPack 4.2.1 to Jetpack 4.3.0 without erasing current resource.

4.3.1 is the first release which will provide over-the-air self update to newer releases without a separate flash. You can clone and preserve content on the JetPack4.2.1 root filesystem for later reference, but you have to flash (which erases current content) if you want to use SDKM/JetPack4.3 to update with.

If you wish to clone, then with the USB-C connected to a host PC and the Xavier in recovery mode, from your “Linux_for_Tegra/” sudirectory (which for 4.2.1 is “~/nvidia/nvidia_sdk/JetPack_4.2.1_Linux_GA_P288/Linux_for_Tegra/”), you would run this command (you need a lot of disk space before you start, this will be around 32GB in size):

sudo ./flash.sh -r -k APP -G my_backup.img jetson-tx2 mmcblk0p1

This would produce two files. The sparse image is “my_backup.img”, and I always discard this since it can only be used for flashing and cannot be examined nor manipulated or edited. The raw file is “my_backup.img.raw”, and this is a bit-for-bit exact copy of the partition. This can be loopback mounted, examined, so on, e.g.:

sudo mount -o loop my_backup.img.raw /mnt
cd /mnt
ls
cd -
sudo umount /mnt

Once you have 4.3.1 installed, then you will be set for future upgrades via “apt” (there are no releases past this at this time, but in the future things should be easier).

Hi,
Is it correctly understood that JetPack 4.2.1 upgrade to JetPack 4.3.1 using flash when 4.3.1 is available would bring me directly to the new future “apt” method? it seems to me that flashing to 4.3.0 requires another flashing in the future when the 4.3.1 is there?

4.3.1 is the first release which is using the NVIDIA repositories with apt the same way as other packages are installed. This is the first such release where the NVIDIA-specific packages are supplied in any method other than directly flashing under the driver package/JetPack/SDK Manager via a separate host PC.

Note that 4.3.1 is 4.3, but without specifically naming the first 4.3 release.

If you install 4.3.1 (4.3), then should there be a 4.3.2 I would expect to be able to simply use a standard apt-get mechanism for the “.2” release. I don’t know if perhaps there will be other releases which are more major and might once again require another flash, but you should be safe for at least some of those future releases (there hasn’t been a release since 4.3.1 and so there is no test history possible…all I can really say is that it is intended for future releases, to some degree, to not require JetPack/SDK Manager for migration).

Thanks linuxdev!