I bought the Orin Nano dev kit, hoping to learn something.
I’ve been coding for 40 years, so I know my way around computers, but ai is all new to me.
the hardware on this gizmo is nice (better that pi which I’ve been using for years),
cuda and tensor cores, two cameras, and pcie is nice to have.
so I got it up, and started following the nvidia tutorials. well, tried anyway.
long story short, a week later this pos went back,
and I doubt I’ll touch another nvidia product.
the documentation, the tutorials, and these forums suck,
and the whole startup process could hardly be worse.
instead of clearly laid out short path to follow simply to get someting working,
you know, like hello-world, there is a jungle of links to other steps and instructions,
most of which simply don’t work, or may be unnecessary or even wrong for the hardware.
I had to dust off old intel laptop and install ubuntu 22 and that bloated sdk manager
just to flash the nvme ssd. vm did not work.
the jetson linux os is horrible, e.g. only plain usb wired keyboard and mouse worked
(all my peripherals work with pis, thinkpads, macbooks, etc, so it’s not me, it’s you),
your own desktop “readme” points to nothing, snap must be downgraded to run anything,
the “super” mode is bs (instant throttling), the fan does nothing because it defaults to “quiet”,
I need swap because the fat os takes 2.5GB ram so not enough ram for most models.
I only could run native ollama. NONE of the tutorials worked.
even when after many re-tries I managed to build everything and “start”,
nothing was listening on the ports I was supposed to browse to.
I tried with micro-sd too, I tried different combinations of install options.
I just lost a week of my time fighting this crap, and for this I say @#$% you nvidia coders.
I should have known, I’ve had occasinal run-ins with nvidia graphics cards since mid 90’s,
and the nvidia drivers always sucked. nothing but problems.
hardware is useless without working software and drivers and documentation,
and nvidia coders are obviously the worst. anyway, enough venting.
I’m getting pi5 ai hat instead. and I’m rooting for amd to catch up.
We appreciate your suggestion and opinion, but with more specific description on the issue you met could help more.
We have the following toturials or getting started guide. not sure which one brought you the trobue:
Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit Getting Started Guide | NVIDIA Developer
Robotics Fundamentals Learning Path | NVIDIA
If you’re looking for a more accessible platform, the Raspberry Pi or other alternatives may be a better fit. However, if you’re willing to invest the time and effort, the Jetson Orin Nano can be a powerful tool for AI and machine learning projects.