Minimal RootFS

Robotics & Edge Computing Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson TX2
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Hello all,

I was experiencing some disk space issues with the TX2 so I decided to make a custom rootfs without a desktop environment and other software which I didn’t need. The official NVIDIA documentation is located here:
docs.nvidia. com/jetson/l4t/index.html#page/Tegra Linux Driver Package Development Guide/rootfs_custom.html

I decided against using nv_build_samplefs.sh and instead started from scratch. I’ve attached two small scripts I wrote for this. One is for the TX2 with the official devboard, the other is for the Elroy carrier board from Connect Tech. It’s possible to use these scripts for other Jetsons/carrier boards too but you’d have to modify the script to use the correct apt sources.

The script requirements are:
debootstrap qemu-static-user binfmt-support
You’ll also need to run the script as root (you should check the contents of the script first!). Then place the resulting “rootfs” directory in the JetPack SDK. After that, you’ll need to copy over the extlinux.conf file:
cd Linux_for_Tegra
install -Dm644 bootloader/extlinux.conf rootfs/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf

Then you can go straight to flashing. I couldn’t get the apply_binaries.sh script to work since the .deb files that it installs require dependencies which aren’t present in the rootfs. Instead, the script itself downloads the most current versions of the relevant packages with apt.

Take note that I’ve set the distribution to focal. This isn’t officially supported by NVIDIA but I got it to work by disabling the make recovery script. flash.sh will try to generate a recovery.img file otherwise. If you want the recovery.img, you’ll need to change the distribution to bionic, and install additional packages like wpa_supplicant and parted. You can also patch the SDK to use focal file paths (see attachment 3).
A full list of required files for the recovery partition are in Linux_for_Tegra/tools/ota_tools/version_upgrade/recovery_copy_binlist.txt
I was also able to avoid this by using version 32.4.4 of the SDK since it doesn’t include the make recovery script.

Regards.

rootfs-tx2-devkit.sh (7.0 KB)

rootfs-tx2-cti-elroy.sh (4.9 KB)

sdk.patch (9.4 KB)

1 Like
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Correction. Connect Tech uses the same APT repo for all of their TX2 carrier boards, so the rootfs-tx2-cti-elroy.sh script should work with the Orbitty, Astro and others.

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hello arash.negahdar,

could you please also let us know what’s the disk space it kept after the modification.
it would be great if you’re also sharing the comparisons.
thanks for sharing!

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The samplefs is 4.1 GB unpacked, while this rootfs is 2.4. You can slim it down a bit further by removing the lines in the script that install python.

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Hello, is this an procedure I can run on my Orin Devkit without breaking it? I can’t get past dependency errors when running apply_binaries.sh on minimal rootfs downloaded from nv_build_sample.sh

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hello leomuteki,

this is thread for TX2.
please create a new discussion thread, and share your steps in details for reference.