Upgrade JetPack 5 to Production Version

JetPack 5 is now production level ready! If you are working with the JetPack 5 Developer Preview version on your NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin, AGX Xavier or Xaiver NX, then you can upgrade using apt. Looky here:

Introduction

The JetPack 5.0.2 production release installs all of the NVIDIA specific packages of Linux Four Tegra on the Jetson Orin and Xavier family of processors. L4T 35.1 is a Ubuntu 20.04 Focal variant. If you have a Jetson AGX Orin, or have previously upgraded your Jetson AGX Xavier or Xavier NX to earlier JetPack 5 versions, you may upgrade to the production version using the Linux apt tool.

Upgrading JetPack 5

According to the official documentation for upgrading JetPack 5 there are three main commands to issue after updating the apt sources list to start the upgrade. I’ll add an extra pre-step here. Make sure to backup your important work files. The time depends on the speed of your Internet connection, there’s about 4.3 GB of data to download. Here it took ~ 25 minutes.

Step 1 – Backup your files

I’m convinced on their first day of work, update software engineers are taught how to sense that files have not been backed up. It’s probably a kind of hocus pocus voodoo thing. I imagine people sitting on the floor in a circle performing some type of twisted meditation. They may even be using incense. Not malicious, just the fabric of the system updating community.

To combat this, I make sure to backup my system before making a major upgrade. If I’m being honest, I typically just buy a new computer instead. I know a system update is going to brick the one I’m using anyway.

I backup my machines to a Network Attached Storage (NAS), and then a USB drive. Important work (like code) is kept in the cloud as well. You can find some of my code on the JetsonHacks account on Github. You should too. Overly cautious? No, but thank you for asking.

Step 2 – Update the System

First, edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-l4t-apt-source.list using your favorite text editor. Note that in the documentation the first / character is missing. You want the version to be r35.1 for this upgrade. Make sure to save the file, I’ve found that it works better that way.

Next, update apt so the changes you made take effect:

$ sudo apt update

Step 3 – Distribution Upgrade

The moment we have been waiting for. Start the distribution upgrade:

$ sudo apt dist-upgrade

This will mostly update the system. I say mostly because it will fail towards the end. One of the packages was renamed, so let’s work around that:

$ sudo apt install --fix-broken -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-overwrite"

After that, the system will be upgraded to the production version of JetPack. A reboot makes sure everything takes.

Notes

In the video, a Jetson AGX Orin is updated for L4T 34.0.1 to L4T 35.1.0.

You can’t backup enough. Here’s what I currently use:

• Network Attached Storage (4 Bay): https://amzn.to/3Clzk6S
• 10 TB NAS Hard Drive: https://amzn.to/3Pycj3v
• USB Hard Drive (5TB): https://amzn.to/3PycmfH

I use 4 10TB drives in the NAS. Along with the Jetson data, I also keep my YouTube videos there too.