Canonical Launches Official Ubuntu Server Images for NVIDIA's Jetson Orin System-on-Module Family
If you're looking for something more mainstream than Jetpack, you can pick up Ubuntu Server 22.04 now.
Canonical has announced the availability of official Ubuntu Server images for the NVIDIA Jetson Orin system-on-module — after NVIDIA's long-term use of a customized Ubuntu for its own Jetpack distribution.
"Our collaboration with NVIDIA represents a significant step forward in democratizing AI [Artificial Intelligence] at the edge," claims Canonical's of the companies' announcement. "By combining Ubuntu's enterprise-grade reliability with NVIDIA's cutting-edge accelerated computing, we're enabling innovators to take AI from concept to production effortlessly."
NVIDIA's Jetson platform of system-on-modules has long been supported by Canonical's Ubuntu Linux, but only as a customized distribution known as Jetpack — the successor to NVIDIA's earlier Linux For Tegra (L4T) project. Today's announcement means that Canonical itself will offer something closer to mainstream Ubuntu for the platform, building on the company's Ubuntu Server 22.04 — a somewhat odd choice, given that Ubuntu 24.04 LTS has been out for nearly a year now.
Not all Jetson boards are supported by Canonical's operating system images, however: only the Orin family are included, with separate downloads provided for the Jetson AGX Orin, Jetson Orin NX, and Jetson Orin Nano models. All are based on an Ubuntu Server 22.04 build, and all require the user to update their board's boot firmware before installation.
Images for all Jetson Orin models are now available to download from the Ubuntu website; neither Canonical nor NVIDIA have announced any plans to release similar images for other members of the Jetson family.