NVIDIA Jetson Orin - JetPack 6.1 - Building the Kernel, OoT Modules and DTBs

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NVIDIA®Jetson AGX Orin™
Introduction
SoM Overview Carrier Boards NVIDIA developer kit Auvidea X230D Connect Tech Forge Software Development Support
JetPack 6.1
Getting Started Installing JetPack Flashing the board with GUI installer JetPack Components Compiling Source Code Obtaining Sources Building Kernel, OoT Modules and DTBs Flashing the Board from Cmdline Flashing Filesystem
JetPack 5.0.2
Getting Started Installing JetPack Flashing the board with GUI installer JetPack Components Compiling Source Code Obtaining Sources Compiling Kernel, OoT Modules and DTB Flashing the Board from Cmdline Flashing Filesystem
Performance Tuning
Evaluating Performance Set Values Manually Tuning Power Maximizing Performance Software Encoders For Jetson Orin Nano
Development in the Board
Getting into the Board Using Serial Console Using SSH Using Ubuntu Login Installing Packages
Emulation
Flashing commands for emulation
Supported Cameras
IMX477+J20 Driver
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Ampere GPU
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Reference Documentation
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Follow these steps to compile the kernel, device tree, and modules for JetPack 6.1 (L4T r36.4).

Install the Toolchain

The Jetson kernel must be cross-compiled on the host PC using the reference toolchain. Download the Bootlin toolchain recommended for L4T r36.4 from the Jetson Linux page.

mkdir $HOME/l4t-gcc
cd $HOME/l4t-gcc
wget https://developer.nvidia.com/downloads/embedded/l4t/r36_release_v3.0/toolchain/aarch64--glibc--stable-2022.08-1.tar.bz2
tar -xjf aarch64--glibc--stable-2022.08-1.tar.bz2

This installs the cross-compilation binaries into $HOME/l4t-gcc.

Export Environment Variable

Export the variables that will be used during the build process. If your sources are in a different directory, update DEVDIR to point to the correct Linux_for_Tegra folder.

export DEVDIR=$HOME/nvidia/nvidia_sdk/JetPack_6.1_Linux_JETSON_AGX_ORIN_TARGETS/Linux_for_Tegra
export CROSS_COMPILE=$HOME/l4t-gcc/aarch64--glibc--stable-2022.08-1/bin/aarch64-buildroot-linux-gnu-
export INSTALL_MOD_PATH=$DEVDIR/rootfs/
export KERNEL_HEADERS=$DEVDIR/source/kernel/kernel-jammy-src

Explanation:

• DEVDIR: Path to the JetPack 6.1 Linux_for_Tegra installation.
• CROSS_COMPILE: Path to the cross-compilation toolchain.
• INSTALL_MOD_PATH: Path where kernel modules will be installed.
• KERNEL_HEADERS: Path to the kernel headers.

Configure the Kernel

Go to the kernel source directory:

cd $KERNEL_HEADERS

(Optional) Open the kernel configuration menu if you want to enable or disable specific features:

make menuconfig

Compile the Kernel

Change to the sources directory and compile the kernel:

cd $DEVDIR/source
make -C kernel

Install the kernel into the Linux_for_Tegra tree:

sudo -E make install -C kernel
cp kernel/kernel-jammy-src/arch/arm64/boot/Image $DEVDIR/kernel/Image

Compile the Device Trees

Build the device tree blobs (DTBs):

make dtbs

Copy the generated DTBs into the Linux_for_Tegra/kernel/dtb/ directory:

cp $DEVDIR/source/kernel-devicetree/generic-dts/dtbs/* $DEVDIR/kernel/dtb/

Compile the Out-of-Tree Modules

Compile the additional NVIDIA modules:

make modules

Install the modules into the rootfs:

sudo -E make modules_install

Update the initramfs to include the new modules:

cd $DEVDIR
sudo ./tools/l4t_update_initrd.sh

Note: If you are building natively on the Jetson target, you can update the initramfs directly with:

sudo nv-update-initrd

After completing these steps, the $DEVDIR/kernel/ and $DEVDIR/rootfs/ directories will contain the updated kernel, DTBs, and modules. These components are now ready to be flashed onto the Jetson device.

Next, continue with Flashing the Board.