As I understand it L4T is ubuntu based, but not the same as ubuntu 20.04? the apt available packages are not as many as in my desktop environment (on the jetson it only goes up to python versions later than python3.9 is not available for example (after sudo. apt update && upgrade). Is it possible to run the ubuntu desktop https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop on the jetson? I understand it might not be optimised and lack some default packages for the jetson but just to help us work around our dependencies.
Whenever you add NVIDIA drivers to a purely Ubuntu rootfs it becomes known as “Linux for Tegra” (L4T). Years ago there was no GUI installer, it was all command line. One would unpack the “driver package” (when flashing in recovery mode the Jetson is a custom USB device understood by a custom USB driver…appropriately named the “driver package”), and then as a separate step run the “sudo ./apply_binaries.sh” command to overlay the purely Ubuntu rootfs with the NVIDIA content. This means it is the end user making that application, which someone simplifies distribution.
That is available for every L4T release, and is the “sample rootfs”. You can find the sample rootfs and driver package for each L4T release here (which happens to also tie to a give JetPack/SDK Manager release…the GUI and network part of the front end to the driver package):
https://developer.nvidia.com/linux-tegra
Keep in mind that this is an embedded system. It has a lot more memory available than the original embedded systems, but one does not normally throw in everything (including the kitchen sink) except on an actual desktop PC. It is somewhat trimmed, but it still has the apt mechanism to add things. Any of the L4T R35.x is Ubuntu 20.04, although it is a slightly trimmed down 20.04, and it is 64-bit ARM, plus it has modifications for booting and for Tegra hardware. Getting something else to work is not trivial.
However, you’ll be happy to know that the current JetPack 5 (which installs L4T R35.x) is getting a major release upgrade quite soon. I’ve not seen it, but this next release (which works with Orin, but not with an older hardware) is supposed to be equipped for helping people boot other Linux flavors and releases. I’m guessing that by next week there will be some tools to work with customizing what you install. Right now you cannot just install some other Ubuntu 20.04, it needs to be compatible with the apply_binaries.sh; the way to achieve what you want at the moment is to use the apt command to add what is missing.
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