JetPack 6 Production Release

JetPack 6 is now a production release! This version of JetPack is for the NVIDIA Jetson Orin series, and will not work on earlier Jetsons. This version of JetPack marks a major shift towards a friendlier software upgrade path more in keeping with traditional Linux releases. Here’s the info lifted from the NVIDIA Jetson Developers Forum. Note that on the NVIDIA site there’s additional information and quick start install info:

We are pleased to announce the production release of JetPack 6.0. JetPack 6 packages Jetson Linux 36.3 with Linux Kernel 5.15 and Ubuntu 22.04 based root file system. The Jetson AI stack in JetPack 6 includes CUDA 12.2, cuDNN 8.9, TensorRT 8.6, and VPI 3.1. This release supports all NVIDIA Jetson Orin modules and developer kits.

Highlights of JetPack 6:

• Production ready software stack
• Preview of upgradable compute stack to upgrade CUDA, Tensorrt, cuDNN, DLA and VPI without upgrading Jetson Linux. Refer to JetPack documentation for running compute stack from this production release on JetPack 6 Developer Preview.
• Pre-built Kernel debian package with PREMPT_RT enabled.
• Support for upgrading Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit from JetPack 5 to JetPack 6 without needing a host machine.
• Over-The-Air (OTA) Update
  • Support for Over-The-Air (OTA) tool to upgrade NVIDIA Jetson Orin based devices from JetPack 5.
• Security
  • Enabled support for security features, bringing parity with JetPack 5.
• Power And Performance
  • Enabled support for power features, bringing parity with JetPack 5.
  • Power Estimator supported for JetPack 6.
• Display
  • Support for Framebuffer console
  • Support for suspend/resume in Display Core Engine (DCE)
• Multimedia
  • Support for H264 Constrained_Baseline and Constrained_High profiles
  • Dynamic Bitrate Rate, Dynamic FrameRate support for AV1 encoder
  • Dynamic Resolution Change[DRC] support for H264, H265 and AV1 encoder
  • UYVY BT.709 and BT.2020 colorimetry support for video transform

JetPack 6 now includes Jetson Platform Services: A collection of ready to use services to accelerate AI application development on Jetson. Read more about it in the JetPack product page. These services will be made available on Jetpack 6 soon (May end). These services can be easily installed via debian package or via SDK Manager when available.

Installation:

You can install JetPack 6 with any of the methods below:

• SDK Manager: You can do a fresh install of JetPack 6 using SDK Manager. It supports installing JetPack 6 to emmc (for Jetson AGX Orin), or nvme SSD.
• Debian Package: If you have JetPack 6 Developer Preview already installed on Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit or Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit, you can upgrade to JetPack 6 using APT. Refer to the steps here
• SD Card: If you are using Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit, you can download the SD Card image from JetPack 6 page and use Balena Etcher to prepare the SD Card with JetPack 6.
• Manual Flashing: If you prefer to install using command line, you can flash Jetson device from a linux host by following steps here. Once Jetson Linux is flashed, you can install the compute stack using SDK Manager (using linux host) or by running “sudo apt update” followed by “sudo apt install nvidia-jetpack” on Jetson.

For Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit Users:

If you are using JetPack 5 currently on Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit and want to upgrade to JetPack 6 without using a Linux host. Please follow the instructions here.

JetPack 6.0 Components:

• Jetson Linux 36.3
• CUDA 12.2
• TensorRT 8.6.2
• cuDNN 8.9.4
• VPI 3.1
• Vulkan 1.3
• Nsight Systems 2024.2
• Nsight Graphics 2023.4

SDK Support:

• DeepStream 7.0 (coming in May)
• Isaac ROS 3.0 (coming in May)
• Holoscan 2.0

Containers:

• CUDA Runtime: nvcr.io/nvidia/l4t-cuda:12.2.12-runtime
• CUDA Devel: nvcr.io/nvidia/l4t-cuda:12.2.12-devel
• Tensorrt Runtime: nvcr.io/nvidia/l4t-tensorrt:r8.6.2-runtime
• Tensorrt Devel: nvcr.io/nvidia/l4t-tensorrt:r8.6.2-deve

Rest of the containers will be made live soon.l

JetPack 6 Resources:

• JetPack 6.0 Release Notes and Documentation 7
• Jetson Linux 36.3 Documentation 4
• Jetson Linux 36.3 Release Notes 3

Look Ahead

We’ll certainly be looking into these new developments in future articles. There’s a lot of documentation to read, and lots of stuff to grok. Time to dig in and get started!