Kernel build error: mkdir: cannot create directory ‘arch/arm64/boot/dts/nvidia/’

[petersonyuhala]

Hello, I am trying to build the kernel sources for a Jetson AGX Xavier devkit.

I’ve followed the instructions here: Kernel Customization — Jetson Linux<br/>Developer Guide 34.1 documentation, : downloaded and expanded the kernel sources (kernel-5.10), and set up the cross-compilation env variables.

The kernel build was “error-less” until this point where it fails to create the dir arch/arm64/boot/dts/nvidia/.

Does anyone have an idea how I can fix this?

Building kernel-5.10 sources
make: Entering directory '/home/ubuntu/jetson-xavier/kernel/kernel-5.10'
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/ubuntu/jetson-xavier/kernel_out'
  GEN     Makefile
#
# No change to .config
#
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/ubuntu/jetson-xavier/kernel_out'
make: Leaving directory '/home/ubuntu/jetson-xavier/kernel/kernel-5.10'
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/ubuntu/jetson-xavier/kernel_out'
  GEN     Makefile
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/ubuntu/jetson-xavier/kernel_out'
  CALL    /home/ubuntu/jetson-xavier/kernel/kernel-5.10/scripts/atomic/check-atomics.sh
  CALL    /home/ubuntu/jetson-xavier/kernel/kernel-5.10/scripts/checksyscalls.sh
  CHK     include/generated/compile.h
if [ ! -d arch/arm64/boot/dts/nvidia/ ] ; then \
	mkdir arch/arm64/boot/dts/nvidia/ ; \
fi
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘arch/arm64/boot/dts/nvidia/’: No such file or directory
make[2]: *** [/home/ubuntu/jetson-xavier/kernel/kernel-5.10/arch/arm64/boot/dts/Makefile:96: dtbs] Error 1
make[1]: *** [/home/ubuntu/jetson-xavier/kernel/kernel-5.10/Makefile:1391: dtbs] Error 2
make: *** [Makefile:213: __sub-make] Error 2

[DaveYYY]

Hi, can you specify what environment you are using on the host PC? (OS and compiler version)
Also try to use the latest L4T and JetPack release.

[petersonyuhala]

The host PC OS version:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS
Release:	20.04
Codename:	focal

The cross-compiler version:

aarch64--glibc--stable-2020.08-1

The gcc version on the host PC:

gcc (Ubuntu 9.4.0-1ubuntu1~20.04.1) 9.4.0

Make version on host PC:

GNU Make 4.2.1
Built for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

[WayneWWW]

Could you share us the source code tree you downloaded?

[petersonyuhala]

Here is the link to the Jetson Linux sources I downloaded: https://developer.nvidia.com/downloads/public-sourcestbz2

[WayneWWW]

What files did you decompress from it?

[petersonyuhala]

After decompressing the public sources, the corresponding kernel file I use is:

public_sources/Linux_for_Tegra/source/public/kernel_src.tbz2

[linuxdev]

Is this unpacked as root? Or just as a regular user somewhere under the home directory? I’m just wondering if it is an artifact of root ownership.

[petersonyuhala]

It was not unpacked with root privileges as far as I remember (I will redo everything to be certain).
Could multithreading be a potential cause?

[petersonyuhala]

@linuxdev apparently the problem was linked to user permissions. I did a clean uncompress and compile (with non root privileges) and everything compiles fine now. Thanks for the hint.