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Get Ready!

To start the Jetson Orin Nano journey, the first step is to figure out where to grab the source code and which build tools are needed.

Note

These notes are based on the official NVIDIA Jetson Linux Developer Guide R36.5.

Check the L4T Version

Verify the L4T (Linux for Tegra) version running on the device. In my case, it is r36.5.

The version can be checked using the following command:

rylan-nano@ubuntu:~$ cat /etc/nv_tegra_release 
# R36 (release), REVISION: 5.0, GCID: 43688277, BOARD: generic, EABI: aarch64, DATE: Fri Jan 16 03:50:45 UTC 2026
# KERNEL_VARIANT: oot
TARGET_USERSPACE_LIB_DIR=nvidia
TARGET_USERSPACE_LIB_DIR_PATH=usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/nvidia

Download Source Code

1. Driver Package (BSP)

  1. Navigate to the Jetson Linux Archive.
  2. Select the version corresponding to the L4T release (e.g., 36.5 - Direct Link).
  3. Download the Driver Package (BSP) from the DRIVERS section.

Extract the downloaded file Jetson_Linux_<version>_aarch64.tbz2 and you'll get the Linux_for_Tegra folder.

2. BSP Sources

  1. On the same download page, locate the SOURCES section.
  2. Download the Driver Package (BSP) Sources (public_sources.tbz2).

Extraction Procedure

Use the following commands to set up the source tree. Replace <install-path> with the target directory.

# Extract public sources
$ tar xf public_sources.tbz2 -C <install-path>/Linux_for_Tegra/..

# Navigate to the source directory
$ cd <install-path>/Linux_for_Tegra/source

# Extract kernel and module component sources
$ tar xf kernel_src.tbz2
$ tar xf kernel_oot_modules_src.tbz2
$ tar xf nvidia_kernel_display_driver_source.tbz2

Install Build Dependencies

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade -y

# Essential tools and libraries
$ sudo apt install -y build-essential bc flex bison libssl-dev zstd