Hey all,
I’ve just gotten a new JetsonTX2 and am excited to start developing, however I’m finding it rather difficult to setup the way I’d like. Specifically I’m trying to install a couple of programs:
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teamviewer - this is a program for remote control of one computer from another also running the teamviewer software
-
visual studio code - this is the text editor I’d like to do development with because of its vast library of plugins/addons
Both of these programs say they are available on linux-based operating systems, and my jetson is running the version of Ubuntu it came with from the factory, so I figured there would be no problems. Despite this, I haven’t successfully gotten either program to install.
Some googling indicates that this is because the CPU on the Jetson uses a particular architecture called “ARM”, while most other consumer computers use a CPU architecture called “x86”. This doesn’t make any sense to me though! Throughout my life, I’ve never been asked what architecture my CPU uses when downloading and installing a program, only which operating system my computer is running. I’ve also never seen programs advertised as being able to run on a CPU with a particular architecture, only on a computer with a particular operating system.
Furthermore, I thought the point of writing programs in “high level languages” was to make the program independent from the hardware it’s executed on. As far as I know, the only way to write a program for a specific CPU architecture would be to write that program in a language that only that architecture understands (i.e. assembly or machine code). I find it hard to believe that any of the programs I’m trying to install are written in such low level languages that they can only run on a specific CPU architecture.
If there’s a gap/flaw in my understanding of how programs compiled, I have a couple questions for the community:
- Where is the gap in my knowledge?
- Is there any way to get programs designed for x86 architecture to run on the jetson? I have more programs than the ones listed here that I’d like to use.
If my understanding of how programs are compiled seems correct, I have some different questions for the community:
- If it’s not the ARM architecture of the CPU causing the problems, what else could cause these programs to not install even though they say they’re available for linux?
- What next steps should I take to try and install these programs?
Looking forward to your replies!