Where do I find help with installing Jetpack on my new Jetson Orin Nano

Robotics & Edge Computing Jetson Systems Jetson Orin Nano
1

I am an engineer with many years Linux experience but am finding the installation of the Jetpack 6 on my new Jetson Orin Nano Deveper Kit extremely time consuming and frustrating. I cannot even find the tags for “installation” or “setup” in the boxes above.

My first problem is that my OS is Ubuntu 25.10 and SDK packs are only available for 25.04 so without changing my complete OS the SDK route is not available to me.

I have managed to setup a working system on the SD card with the NVMe unmounted but I would like to use the NVMe =as the primary root filesystem and use the SD card for other partitions and directories. But I can fin no way to flash the NVMe with the SD card data. I think I made an error at the start and downloaded the Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit, by mistake. When I booted this I was asked if I wanted to flash it to the NVMe which I did. So now my NVMe has a wrong version installed under a user called Jetson for whom I have no password. What I would like to do is re-flash the NVMe with the working Jetpack 6.2.1 fir the Orin Nano but I have learned that starting with JetPack 6.x, NVIDIA removed the old nvme-install.sh helper from the SD-card images. Great!

Any help would be really appreciated, even where to post this queriy correctly would be useful ;-)

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*** Please note that this reply is generated by LLM automatically ***

I understand your frustration with the installation process of Jetpack 6 on your Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit. I’ll try to provide a comprehensive answer to your questions and guide you through the process.

Issue 1: Ubuntu 25.10 and SDK packs availability

You’re correct that the SDK packs are only available for Ubuntu 25.04, and you’re running Ubuntu 25.10. Unfortunately, this means you won’t be able to use the SDK route to install Jetpack 6.

Issue 2: Flashing NVMe with SD card data

You’ve managed to set up a working system on the SD card with the NVMe unmounted, but you want to use the NVMe as the primary root filesystem and the SD card for other partitions and directories. To achieve this, you’ll need to flash the NVMe with the Jetpack 6 image.

Issue 3: Wrong version installed on NVMe

You’ve installed the wrong version of Jetpack on the NVMe, and you want to reflash it with the correct version for the Orin Nano. This is a common issue, and I’ll guide you through the process.

Solution

To reflash the NVMe with the correct version of Jetpack 6 for the Orin Nano, follow these steps:

  1. Download the correct image: Download the Jetpack 6 image for the Orin Nano from the NVIDIA website. Make sure to select the correct image for your device.
  2. Prepare the SD card: Prepare an SD card with the Jetpack 6 image using Etcher or the dd command. This will be used as a boot device to flash the NVMe.
  3. Boot from the SD card: Boot your Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit from the SD card. Make sure the NVMe is unmounted.
  4. Flash the NVMe: Use the flash.sh script to flash the NVMe with the Jetpack 6 image. You can find the script in the Linux_for_Tegra directory.

Here’s an example of how to flash the NVMe:

$ cd Linux_for_Tegra/
$ sudo ./flash.sh jetson-orin-nano-devkit-nvme internal

This will flash the NVMe with the Jetpack 6 image. Make sure to replace jetson-orin-nano-devkit-nvme with the correct device name for your NVMe.

Additional tips

  • Make sure to disconnect the NVMe storage from the Jetson Orin Nano Devkit and insert an SD card into the device before flashing the NVMe.
  • Use the sudo nvbootctrl dump-slots-info command to check the current slot bootloader version in the QSPI. The output Current version should be less than 35.6.0.
  • If you’re using a PCIe NVMe drive, make sure to specify the correct PCIe controller and slot number when flashing the NVMe.

Where to post this query correctly

You can post your query on the NVIDIA Jetson forums or the NVIDIA developer forums. These forums are dedicated to Jetson and NVIDIA-related topics, and you’ll likely get help from experienced developers and NVIDIA staff.

I hope this helps you resolve your issues and successfully install Jetpack 6 on your Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit.

*** Please give the thumbs up if you get answers you like. Or provide feedback to help us improve the answer. ***

3

Thank you for the quick reply. I’m on a steep learning curve with the Jetson Orin Nano, so please understand if my questions seem naive. When I initially booted from an SD card with the Jetpack6 image (prepared with Etcher) the Jetson Orin Nano booted directly into a setup sequence, where I set my username and password etc. The directory Linux_for_Tegra does not exist on this SD with a working system. Are you suggesting I use the image before the setup? If so how do I stop the setup from running?

4

This is just some background which you might find useful.

The “Linux_for_Tegra/” directory would be on a host PC when flashing via an Ubuntu host, and is not on the SD card itself. There is a subdirectory, “Linux_for_Tegra/rootfs/”, which along with Jetson model and carrier board model, is used to create images. The SD card image is just one possible image, and is prebuilt, whereas the host PC can do a lot more.

Jetsons do not have a hardware BIOS the way you might think of most computers. Jetsons do have the equivalent in software. During a “full” flash of a Jetson you are more or less also flashing BIOS (not really a BIOS, just binary data), the bootloader, and the o/s. A true BIOS allows a system to “self flash”, e.g., putting an install disk in a slot and running it. Jetsons can’t do that.

L4T (“Linux for Tegra”) is just what Ubuntu is called after adding the NVIDIA driver content for use with a Jetson. A list of L4T releases and compatibility is here:
https://developer.nvidia.com/linux-tegra

Each release has a major release version, e.g., L4T R36.x, and a given “host PC” JetPack release tends to target installing that L4T release (there are other JetPack packages, but we’re talking about the flash software on the host PC side during flash; JetPack in this case can flash earlier L4T releases, but won’t show those unless it is started with the option to show earlier releases). In the case of a prebuilt SD card image it is necessary that the Jetson already have the “equivalent to a BIOS” software already installed on the module itself for that major version. For example, L4T 35.x can use any L4T R35.x SD card image; any L4T R36.x prebuilt image can work with a Jetson that has the rest of the software for L4T R36.x. The software-based content for loading the o/s must be in place because it isn’t a generalized BIOS. To change major release you must flash the actual Jetson, and this is different than flashing an SD card.

To emphasize, JetPack is not installed on the SD card, it is L4T installed there. There may be a package you run into called JetPack, but it isn’t the o/s itself.

When you’ve reached the stage that you set up a user name and password it implies your SD card worked for what is on the Jetson itself. This is first boot setup (you can’t use default name and password anymore if you want to sell your product in California). You won’t have to flash the actual Jetson for that major release of L4T. Any package install from the Jetson will be quite different than the package on a host PC used for full flash. Whenever you ask about installing a package be sure to mention it is on the Jetson or on the host PC.

I don’t know what all of the available packages are when installed from the Jetson itself, but the main package to install on a host PC for full flash is JetPack (SDK Manager is just a smart network layer on top of the JetPack GUI, so they come together). JetPack in that case is just a GUI to flashing software, and the actual flash software behind JetPack/SDK Manager is called the “driver package”. A Jetson in recovery mode is a custom USB device which the driver package understands, and the driver package is installed on the host PC.

The real question is “what do you want installed?”. Once you’ve logged in to the Jetson itself there are a number of things you can do for additional software.

5

I have purchased a Jetson Orin Nano and wish to set it up in order to learn about AI.

I am a long time Linux/Ubuntu user who regularly, twice yearly updates my Ubuntu OS. I am presently using Ubuntu 25.10 but have learned since buying my Jetson Orin Nano that in order to set up the Jetson correctly using the SDK Manager I need to degrade the OS on my working laptop to the almost two year old Ubuntu 24.04. This seems to me, as a newbie, to be an unreasonable expectation.

6

The requirement for a specific host PC Ubuntu release is somewhat problematic. I think the “newest” releases of L4T (which Orin cannot use) might be working its way towards working on other releases, but for now it is an issue. In the past I’ve used command line though, and I think this has fewer requirements (but I have not done that in quite some time, I don’t know for sure if it is still true).

Originally there was only command line flash, and this ran from almost any release of Linux. The basic requirement was supporting ext4 and loopback. The JetPack front end to the flash software (the “driver package”) was later introduced, and this limited the host to Ubuntu. The Ubuntu requirements are intersected with the driver package requirements, and this is what you see on documentation. Then the smart network layer, SDK Manager, was added to JetPack. JetPack itself can often be ignored and flash can occur on command line to work from a wider range of hosts. You can download the “driver package” plus “sample root filesystem”, and install that manually, and have the ability to use a wider range of hosts. You’d need to use command line anyway if performing an initrd flash (used with different optional external media). The driver package itself does have some limitations, but it might be worth trying.

However, you said you got to the user name and password setup. That means you don’t need to flash. There is a detail about flash which it is worth mentioning: During flash the Jetson itself will automatically reboot when flash is complete, and the Jetson will no longer be in recovery mode. At this stage you get the first boot account setup which you mentioned reaching. Logging in to that account means ssh is available. It is at this point that JetPack/SDKM is no longer flashing, but is instead installing optional content. That content is transferred via ssh, and this part does not depend on the host PC. This is also the part which command line doesn’t do. This is also when it offers to install developer software on the host PC, and this software also must be a correct release to work with the Jetson.

Much of the software, if the repository is set up (and it probably is once you get first boot login), can be manually installed directly from the Jetson (assuming it has networking available). A typical step someone might take at first boot login is to perform an update of existing software (this is not without risk, but at this stage it is simple):

  1. sudo apt update
  2. sudo apt-get upgrade

Once that is done (and the first one takes significant time), then you could search for packages you are interested in. For example:
apt search cuda

You could then use the standard Ubuntu “sudo apt-get install ...package...” to add that.

Once it is set up I’d highly recommend a clone of the rootfs. If that rootfs is on an SD card, then you are in luck as to how easy it is to clone from another Linux system just using dd.

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