L4T Ubuntu
​

Intro
L4T Ubuntu is a version of Linux based on nvidia's linux for tegra project. It uses a different kernel compared to previous releases which allows it to use features not yet in mainline. Such as audio, docking support and vulkan.

Join our discord: https://discord.gg/53mtKYt

We have a wiki !
To facilitate our work we will only update our wiki from now on in order to avoid multiple outdated references, please refer to the following link instead of this page
https://wiki.switchroot.org/en/Linux/Ubuntu-Install-Guide

Credits
Bylaws,
Langerhans,
Ave,
Natinusala,
CTCaer(most of the hard stuff),
Gavin_Darkglider,
DanielOgorchock(Joycon drivers/joycond),
stary2001 (reboot2payload),
NVIDIA,
Azkali
Everyone else in switchroot - more info on that in the future.

 

[TheZander]

As a developer and someone who compiles his own kernels (and runs Gentoo as his daily driver) I'm afraid that won't be happening.

I hope that sounded better in your head

 

[chaoskagami]

I hope that sounded better in your head

And I'm sure this highly confrontational post sounded nice in yours, as well.

To be clear, I'm not underestimating the effort that went into this, and in fact I do think it's good for the majority of users. I just don't see L4T as being sustainable long-term. Vendor kernels all tend to eventually bitrot and become subject to CVE after CVE.

 

[Unity150_magickavoxel]

L4T Ubuntu 1.1
​

Intro
L4T Ubuntu is a version of Linux based on nvidia's linux for tegra project. It uses a different kernel compared to previous releases which allows it to use features not yet in mainline. Such as audio, docking support and vulkan.

Features

• Dock support with USB
• Bluetooth (both controllers and audio)
• Nvidia GPU drivers - Vulkan and OpenGL
• Audio - Headphones, speakers and over HDMI when docked.
• Joycons and pro controllers are supported fully when not attached to the the console
• Touchscreen
• Display
• WiFi
• CPU frequency scaling - The CPU scales from 200mhz to 1.7ghz (what switch is binned for) depending on the load its under. Fans are adjusted to account for this
• Full sdcard speed
• Hardware video acceleration when using the built in videos app (means you can watch videos without battery draining massively)

Prerequisites

• A dedicated 16GB+ sdcard

Downloads

• Sdcard image: https://download.switchroot.org/switchroot-l4t-ubuntu-2019-04-28.img.gz

Updates

• 1.1:
• Download:
• https://download.switchroot.org/updates/update-1-for-switchroot-l4t-ubuntu-2019-04-28.tar.gz
• Installation Instructions:
• apt update && apt upgrade is NOT enough for this update
• Extract this to the first partition of your sdcard, making sure to overwrite Image and tegra210-icosa.dtb.
• Changelog:
• Enabled USB mass storage and binfmt in kernel.
• Fixed touch sensitivity and it not reaching bottom edge.
• Fixed issues with joycon/procon right stick and y axis
• Potentially fixed issues with sdcards, if someones didnt work before please try again, if still no then pm me.

How to install

1. Download the image from the downloads section and extract.
2. Write it to your sdcard using a program such as etcher or dd
3. Apply any kernel updates from the updates section in the thread
4. Boot hekate and select L4T from the configs menu.
5. Wait for around 2-4 minutes while it initially loads
6. Go through the setup process - make sure not to dock the console in this period.
7. Once the initial setup is finished and you are on the login screen it is advisable to reboot:
8. Hold the power button for 10 seconds.
9. Load hekate again and select L4T as a payload.
10. Log in and open the "Disks" app
11. Select the second partition of your sdcard and click the gears icon
12. Choose resize and change the size to the full amount of available space.
13. Enjoy, you now have fully featured Ubuntu on your switch!

Bugs

• Wired joycons do not work (connected to console)
• Docking while having a ssh session open can cause the display to not turn off correctly
• No sleep mode
• USB OTG - works fine in dock though
• Vulkan is buggy in dolphin
• Touch randomly freezes sometimes
• The real time clock gets messed up in horizon

Misc Info

• Pair (joy/pro)cons by opening the bluetooth menu in settings and pressing the + button in the bottom left corner. Then press the sync button on the controller and select its name in the pairing window. Once both joycons are paired press each of their shoulder buttons to use as one controller
• To use dolphin add the "dolphin-emu/ppa" ppa and install the dolphin-emu-master package.
• To update the system run "sudo apt update", "sudo apt upgrade". This will apply all switch and ubuntu updates aside from kernel updates, they will be posted here if ever needed.
• To limit cpu freq, run cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_available_frequencies.Ffind the one you want, then run: echo <freq you want> | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_max_freq
• To force max freq run echo performance | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_governor
• A gui to configure overclocks and fan profiles is coming soon, along with support for using 2.0 ghz cpu

Sources
They can all be found at https://gitlab.com/switchroot with the other kernel repos on http://nv-tegra.nvidia.com

Credits
Langerhans,
Ave,
Natinusala,
CTCaer,
NVIDIA,
Everyone else in switchroot - more info on that in the future.

Do I just write the img again for the 1.1 update or how do I update.

 

[wicksand420]

Do I just write the img again for the 1.1 update or how do I update.

download the update, open the zip and copy it to the sd, overwrite anything it tells you to

 

[FAST6191]

And I'm sure this highly confrontational post sounded nice in yours, as well.

To be clear, I'm not underestimating the effort that went into this, and in fact I do think it's good for the majority of users. I just don't see L4T as being sustainable long-term. Vendor kernels all tend to eventually bitrot and become subject to CVE after CVE.

and if you were employing it on a long term server project I would join many others in giving you odd looks. For a bit of fun on a gaming console* though then it becomes a different proposition.

Bit more abstract but if and when said vendor decides it can't be arsed any more then hopefully the kernel is the least of the issues and all the surrounding software has been smacked into a shape where things can be ported across.

*I will note this appears very much like beta software stages (barely a day old, already seen an update outside the scope of simple in OS update abilities, fairly fundamental hardware support for a fixed platform still spotty... yeah) so if you wanted to hold off while that all gets ironed out that would be a different matter.

 

[pcwizard7]

can you set this up as sd files in folder and load it from a payload? if so how?

thanks

 

[burt111]

Well, tried here, the only difference its now the console reboots to RCM after 5 seconds of black screen. Still not working

You might have to delete all partitions with disk manager and retry idk but have had issues with using win32 disk imager if there’s 2 partitions not sure if this will fix your issue

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

You might have to delete all partitions with disk manager and retry idk but have had issues with using win32 disk imager if there’s 2 partitions not sure if this will fix your issue

And you need to create a partition after you delete them that way it’s assigned a drive letter*

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

what model is your adapter i have 3 different type adapters non of them work maybe they only enable in kernel official Nintendo adapter but this is Linux we have tons of drivers !

We need method to compile our kernels and enable drivers we need!

Was a ugreen adapter from amazon the gigabit version

 

[De4dm4sterBR]

You might have to delete all partitions with disk manager and retry idk but have had issues with using win32 disk imager if there’s 2 partitions not sure if this will fix your issue

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


And you need to create a partition after you delete them that way it’s assigned a drive letter*

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Was a ugreen adapter from amazon the gigabit version

Yes that was exactly what i've done. I dont know what to do, will try to wait from a possible fix by bylaws, but i'm loosing hope

 

[djluis49]

How Dolphin runs on this? Really curious...

 

[jug5]

what model is your adapter i have 3 different type adapters non of them work maybe they only enable in kernel official Nintendo adapter but this is Linux we have tons of drivers !

We need method to compile our kernels and enable drivers we need!

@bylaws Can you please advise us all how to build from scratch or at least compile the kernel and modules unless you're taking requests to add them back in.

 

[Liv2MsTrb8T]

just resized partitions using gparted and its working like a charm, dual boot baby

View attachment 165353

I'm almost with you. Got a 128GB.
Gonna install blender and blaze this Tegra with renders.

 

[jedixscum]

Dolphin is solid with Vulkan. Using an earlier build, I played through Dragon Roost Cavern in Wind Waker. Usually around 25fps, but full 30fps on occasion. ~20fps pretty often inside Dragon Roost Cavern.

Skip to ~9:00 in this video to see a few mins on Outset Island.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x76a6vf

How did you transfer roms to your sd card? I have a 500mb partition with the boot files on it, but my other 30GB partition shows up as unreadable on windows, so I cant copy anything into it.

 

[stick267]

How did you transfer roms to your sd card? I have a 500mb partition with the boot files on it, but my other 30GB partition shows up as unreadable on windows, so I cant copy anything into it.

Download them directly in Ubuntu.

 

[wicksand420]

How did you transfer roms to your sd card? I have a 500mb partition with the boot files on it, but my other 30GB partition shows up as unreadable on windows, so I cant copy anything into it.

you can read from usb in docked mode

 

[ploggy]

Just set this up, currently watching a movie on Kodi.. Smexy!!

 

[Felipe_9595]

Is there any way to warmboot right now? I would love to be able to swap between Switch/Ubuntu on the fly

 

[mhamd]

Mistake

 

[bylaws]

Sadly for me it doesn't solved the black screen problem. Still getting it on SANDISK ULTRA microSD UHS-I

Hmm, I'll contact you with some builds to test in a few days

How are folks setting up their joycons in this?

They connect via bluetooth, and i've done that, but no emulators seem to see any buttons being pressed? Think it's probably a step I'm missing.

Make sure your on 1.1 and that you have pressed RB and lb at the same time after connecting.

would there be a performance increase in retroarch using ubuntu instead of Horizon?

Yes

-screen freeze is fix now work good!
-external hdd works now!

Nvidia vdpau lib for mpv player is need to enable hw-decode now is just
opengl if is possible someone to give this lib from nvidia ubuntu image from jetson board!

We need more drivers for usb-Ethernet adapters why this kernel is so striped from drivers ?

Nvidia don't provide vdpau, you need to use openmax (kodi and anything gstreamer based)
What is your ethernet adapter, I enabled lots in 1.1

And I'm sure this highly confrontational post sounded nice in yours, as well.

To be clear, I'm not underestimating the effort that went into this, and in fact I do think it's good for the majority of users. I just don't see L4T as being sustainable long-term. Vendor kernels all tend to eventually bitrot and become subject to CVE after CVE.

Yeah, I agree. But why are you worried of a kernel cve when your switch has a much worse bootrom bug. Also note Nvidia are already working on 4.14

@bylaws Can you please advise us all how to build from scratch or at least compile the kernel and modules unless you're taking requests to add them back in.

What modules do you want
To compile, setup kernel tree as in the manifest on nv-tegra then add/replace some repos with the ones on switch root. Build as normal

 

[SomeGamer]

Imagine running fusee-launcher on this one and sending a payload with your Switch to another Switch.

 

[R3PTIL3]

Can anyone explain how can i start Ishiiruka Build (linux)? THX