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To facilitate our work we will only update our wiki from now on in order to avoid multiple outdated references, please refer to the following link instead of this page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.

 

[Refriger8tor]

i've managed to boot into Linux on the switch and set the Disk Partition, however theres a few problems..
I can't seem to understand how to update L4T Ubuntu with the latest update,
the keyboard aswell as touchscreen capability is awful and when i go into the Gnome-Terminal and it requires my password whenever i use the caps lock for the first letter of my password it accepts that as the entry for my whole password and asks me to type my password in again meaning im stuck in a loop and can't enter any of the entries i need to put in.. I can't get the Joy Cons recognised through the bluetooth settings whatsoever even when pressing the sync buttons.. and setting up Dolphin Gamecube Emulation w/ Vulkan is pretty much the end goal and the reason i want to use L4T Ubuntu however when i plug my Micro SD into my PC to drop some games on it.. it says that the Micro SD only has less than 100MB on it?

Holy run-on sentence batman. Alright, so delete the boot folder and the boot.src files on the FAT32 partition of your SD card. Then download the update zip file, put it on your FAT32 partition, then right click it and hit "extract here". When it asks you if you want to overwrite or replace any files hit yes (to keep the zip files rather than the ones you already had). Then delete the zip file and you should be good to go.

Also if you are having trouble with the touch controls, I highly recommend plugging a keyboard, mouse, and monitor into your dock and using those (or you can even use a Bluetooth keyboard, etc)

 

[PokOeLe]

Well, even after 1.2, my SD card still not able to boot L4T.

Same. I arrived till the configuration process.. then it rebooted.

 

[Neo_]

I resized the FAT32 partition, applied 1.2 update and now It stays in a black screen. I changed the order of the partitions when I was resizing the FAT32 one, does that matter?

 

[trohn_javolta]

Is there some dual boot tutorial out there? Could I just create a fat32 partition on my current switch sd card and dd the sd.img file to that partiton? If so, how would I boot ubuntu then? And is there a homebrew on switch to reboot to ubuntu and in ubuntu a way to get a menubutton reboot to switch os?
I don't wanna pop in another sd card and keep swapping them all the time.

 

[DollyWhipDoll]

Ok, this Ubuntu Switch is getting a little too hi-tech. Next, somebody's going to utilize the Switch's Joy-Con camera for this.

Spoiler

 

[bylaws]

So I'm trying to get Arch booting on this (I understand I may not have video, I set it up to auto connect to WiFi)

Took the rootfs from here and extracted to a blank second partition (ext4) https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv8/generic

Copied the Image and initramfs-linux.img to the L4T folder

I try to boot it and just get a black screen. I assume I need to edit the offsets in the boot.scr but I'm not sure to what.

This is the current byte size of my Image and initramfs

total 32632
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root     4096 May  6 12:17 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root     4096 Dec 31  1969 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root      386 May  6 12:15 boot.scr
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  1048576 May  6 12:13 coreboot.rom
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 24734208 May  6 19:04 Image
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  7335251 May  6 19:04 initramfs
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   280289 May  6 12:11 tegra210-icosa.dtb

Any chance for future support of the PowerA Gamecube-style controller? Currently it can be manually paired via Bluetooth, but is not recognized as a controller unlike the pro controller or Joy-Cons.

Second question: Is there any way to manage which "controller number" your connected controller shows up as to the system? For instance right now what happens is:

• Joy-Con connect, first time: Controller 1
• Joy-Con disconnect, connect second time: Controller 2
• Joy-Con disconnect, connect third time: Controller 3
• etc.

Seems like a bug, as ideally it would release the controller 1 slot upon each disconnect, then reconnect as controller 1 every time.

Can you give me dmesg when connecting power a controller.

@bylaws first off thanks for making all this possible, truly awesome stuff
secondly, any chance of USB webcam support (or if anybody else here wants to report if their's work)?

Was messing with some peripherals today, USB printing and scanning worked on my Canon MX880 color printer lol!

I'll enable v4l drivers next release

Well, even after 1.2, my SD card still not able to boot L4T.

Next release I'll provide two versions to try, one will slow sdcard but may fix it.

 

[monokin1114]

Is there some dual boot tutorial out there? Could I just create a fat32 partition on my current switch sd card and dd the sd.img file to that partiton? If so, how would I boot ubuntu then? And is there a homebrew on switch to reboot to ubuntu and in ubuntu a way to get a menubutton reboot to switch os?
I don't wanna pop in another sd card and keep swapping them all the time.

You need to copy everything off of the sd card and then burn the L4T image to it. Then you resize the fat32 partition to the size you want. And also resize the linux partition to the size you want. This must be done on a different system then the switch

 

[parkerlreed]

Can you give me dmesg when connecting power a controller.

I'll enable v4l drivers next release

Next release I'll provide two versions to try, one will slow sdcard but may fix it.

You quoted mine. Is there anything that can be done there? I was hoping at least SSH would come up but it never seems to actually boot in (Using Arch ARM's kernel)

 

[JamesWhiting]

Any one know if USB speakers would work? My monitor doesn't support sound unfortunately so would love to know if they would work! Amazing work btw!

 

[parkerlreed]

Any one know if USB speakers would work? My monitor doesn't support sound unfortunately so would love to know if they would work! Amazing work btw!

Yep should

CONFIG_SND_USB=y 
CONFIG_SND_USB_AUDIO=y 
# CONFIG_SND_USB_UA101 is not set 
# CONFIG_SND_USB_CAIAQ is not set 
# CONFIG_SND_USB_6FIRE is not set 
# CONFIG_SND_USB_HIFACE is not set 
# CONFIG_SND_USB_POD is not set 
# CONFIG_SND_USB_PODHD is not set 
# CONFIG_SND_USB_TONEPORT is not set 
# CONFIG_SND_USB_VARIAX is not set

 

[bylaws]

Any one know if USB speakers would work? My monitor doesn't support sound unfortunately so would love to know if they would work! Amazing work btw!

Internal headphones should work if you install pavucontrol and enable hifi audio.

 

[JamesWhiting]

Yep should

CONFIG_SND_USB=y
CONFIG_SND_USB_AUDIO=y
# CONFIG_SND_USB_UA101 is not set
# CONFIG_SND_USB_CAIAQ is not set
# CONFIG_SND_USB_6FIRE is not set
# CONFIG_SND_USB_HIFACE is not set
# CONFIG_SND_USB_POD is not set
# CONFIG_SND_USB_PODHD is not set
# CONFIG_SND_USB_TONEPORT is not set
# CONFIG_SND_USB_VARIAX is not set

Awesome, thanks!

 

[bylaws]

You quoted mine. Is there anything that can be done there? I was hoping at least SSH would come up but it never seems to actually boot in (Using Arch ARM's kernel)

Oops, yeah, you need to make a uimage out of initramfs.https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/311088/how-to-create-uboot-initramfs-image-for-arm64

 

[parkerlreed]

Internal headphones should work if you install pavucontrol and enable hifi audio.

Is there a guide for compiling our own kernel? I noticed the repo on GitLab but I'm not sure what to feed into the script to get things going.

 

[JamesWhiting]

Internal headphones should work if you install pavucontrol and enable hifi audio.

Alright, will give those a try.

 

[bylaws]

I resized the FAT32 partition, applied 1.2 update and now It stays in a black screen. I changed the order of the partitions when I was resizing the FAT32 one, does that matter?

Yes, the second partition has to be the Linux one

 

[parkerlreed]

Oops, yeah, you need to make a uimage out of initramfs.https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/311088/how-to-create-uboot-initramfs-image-for-arm64

Ahh thanks. Will try.

 

[bylaws]

Is there a guide for compiling our own kernel? I noticed the repo on GitLab but I'm not sure what to feed into the script to get things going.

Join retronx and ping me (bylaws)

 

[ReavoEnd]

Can you give me dmesg when connecting power a controller.

Sure, here is the dmesg:

Spoiler

[ 56.168416] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0ee0f2000
[ 56.340966] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0c5dc4c00
[ 56.346450] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0bce06200
[ 56.347381] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0bce06200
[ 56.347436] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0f3286f00
[ 56.354167] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0f3336e00
[ 56.376059] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0ce7aa700
[ 56.380156] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0d0d26700
[ 56.380182] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0d0d26600
[ 56.384065] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0d837ff00
[ 56.415117] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0ce711700
[ 56.415506] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0ce711f00
[ 56.415516] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0ce711200
[ 56.421387] hci0: hu ffffffc0f8546218 skb ffffffc0e9a74500
[ 56.436436] hid-generic 0005:0000:0000.0001: unknown main item tag 0x0
[ 56.436637] input: Lic Pro Controller as /devices/70006300.serial/serial0/serial0-0/bluetooth/hci0/hci0:11/0005:0000:0000.0001/input/input4
[ 56.436925] hid-generic 0005:0000:0000.0001: input,hidraw0: BLUETOOTH HID v0.01 Gamepad [Lic Pro Controller] on 43:56:a3:00:1f:ac

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Join retronx and ping me (bylaws)

I would like to know as well. I cloned the repos and copied in the config, ran make oldconfig, got error. Looks like some nVidia parts are missing from the 4.9 repository. I'm guessing the files are split up somehow between repos, not a normal kernel repository. I wanted to enable modules and try to build with all the USB peripheral drivers typically enabled on a desktop distro turned on.