L4T Ubuntu
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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To facilitate our work we will only update our wiki from now on in order to avoid multiple outdated references, please refer to the following link instead of this page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.

 

[tr0picana]

Do USB C dongles with HDMI female ports work when the Switch is running Ubuntu? Or do I have to use my Switch dock?

 

[BaffledBatsandSlother]

How to install:

1. Download the image(Full with extra dev/cuda stuff, lite like old image) you want from the downloads section and extract.
2. Write it to your sdcard using a program such as etcher or dd
3. Apply any updates from the updates section in the thread, IMPORTANT as images don't EVER come with them

How am I supposed to apply the updates? After I wrote the image to my sd card it no longer shows up in windows explorer.

 

[darklink513]

I've been having trouble updating to 3.0.1. 3.0.0 runs fine. I followed the instructions flashed the img to my sd using etcher and set up the update as the instructions said. There was no 01-Ubuntu.ini only 00-Ubuntu. When I start up the switch and boot Ubuntu through Hekate it just stays on a black screen. I've waited for upwards of twenty minutes with no change. I've tried with both the Full and Lite packages. Downgrading to 3.0.0 works, but I'd like to be on the most up to date version. Any help would be appreciated.

P.S. This is a fresh install on a clean FAT32 SDcard.

Edit: Might be that my SD is garbage...

Edit2: Now it won't start up at all. Regardless of the issue I'll need to get a new sd.

 

[zFerry]

Question, for those who can or have already done so. I would like to put Plex Media Player (I repeat, PLAYER, called PMP) on this distro, mainly my library is composed of h265 / HEVC from 2 up to 20 mb / s and I would like to use the Media Player for linux. The Switch is modifiable but the only reason to modify it is only if the reader is able to use all the switch hardware. Let me explain, the Media Player version of Plex allows you to use the GPU on the client so as not to stress the server (called PMS - Plex Media Server). I wish it was the switch that used all its hardware to allow direct reproductions of the contents instead of having the server process them. Since they are anime series, they are only subs with .ass. These
ass are superimposed on the video (let the server do it I would like to avoid it. in fact on the PMP the client does it if you enable it from the settings). So I would like to know if someone can do a test or if he has already done it and therefore if on hevc / h265 it is usable.
Thanks in advance

 

[BaffledBatsandSlother]

Do USB C dongles with HDMI female ports work when the Switch is running Ubuntu? Or do I have to use my Switch dock?

I'm pretty sure that there is a hardware level requirement for power + hdmi, meaning you need some sort of dock.

 

[The Official GMan]

Question, for those who can or have already done so. I would like to put Plex Media Player (I repeat, PLAYER, called PMP) on this distro, mainly my library is composed of h265 / HEVC from 2 up to 20 mb / s and I would like to use the Media Player for linux. The Switch is modifiable but the only reason to modify it is only if the reader is able to use all the switch hardware. Let me explain, the Media Player version of Plex allows you to use the GPU on the client so as not to stress the server (called PMS - Plex Media Server). I wish it was the switch that used all its hardware to allow direct reproductions of the contents instead of having the server process them. Since they are anime series, they are only subs with .ass. These
ass are superimposed on the video (let the server do it I would like to avoid it. in fact on the PMP the client does it if you enable it from the settings). So I would like to know if someone can do a test or if he has already done it and therefore if on hevc / h265 it is usable.
Thanks in advance

There is support for hardware decoding for h.264, h.265, vp8, and vp9 on the switch and it does work on most media players (note sure about plex specifically though). For example, the built in videos player on ubuntu (called totem) works great as well as the media player within firefox. If there is something specific you would like me to test I could probably do that for you.

Edit: after a quick google search, it looks like plex doesn't support the hardware acceleration api supported by the tegra x1 (the nintendo switch cpu/gpu). There is however a development build of kodi working. I've attached links to these posts for your reading (note: the jetson nano is a single board computer based off of the tegra x1 so posts involving it are relevant) https://forums.developer.nvidia.com...video-codec-for-the-jetson-nano/73849#5333828
https://hub.docker.com/r/aliubimov/kodi-tegra

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

Do USB C dongles with HDMI female ports work when the Switch is running Ubuntu? Or do I have to use my Switch dock?

dongles don't work currently since the drivers haven't been written for them (or verified to work). Currently only the Switch dock is fully supported (including usb 3.0).

 

[zFerry]

There is support for hardware decoding for h.264, h.265, vp8, and vp9 on the switch and it does work on most media players (note sure about plex specifically though). For example, the built in videos player on ubuntu (called totem) works great as well as the media player within firefox. If there is something specific you would like me to test I could probably do that for you.

Edit: after a quick google search, it looks like plex doesn't support the hardware acceleration api supported by the tegra x1 (the nintendo switch cpu/gpu). There is however a development build of kodi working. I've attached links to these posts for your reading (note: the jetson nano is a single board computer based off of the tegra x1 so posts involving it are relevant) https://forums.developer.nvidia.com...video-codec-for-the-jetson-nano/73849#5333828
https://hub.docker.com/r/aliubimov/kodi-tegra

Ok, ... So, never used kodi but looking now there is an extension to make it go on plex libraries (luckily ...). Tomorrow I get the JIG (barring unforeseen circumstances) and I will do tests. More than h264 (it seems strange to me that even h264 is not HW for the gpu of the switch) it is x265. Precisely the Judas anime series on nyaa or any HEVC / x265 film. The official player for linux doesn't exist but as I had already written, someone made an appimage version based on the official player. I can't use the players / homebrew because they only go locally. I wanted to use plex remotely with 4G hotspot. Thanks anyway and I pray a lot that if the Plex app doesn't go at least the Kodi one.

 

[The Official GMan]

@zFerry Not sure if this is a language barrier or a mistranslation on your part but the switch does support hardware video decoding on h.264, h.265 / hevc, vp8, and vp9, its just that the switch gpu is so different from traditional gpus (like intel integrated graphics, nvidia gtx, etc) that they use different coding to interface with the hardware acceleration (so some apps like plex don't support it).

on another note, the nintendo switch also can run Android so you might wan't to look into that as well for running kodi or plex.

 

[zFerry]

@zFerry Not sure if this is a language barrier or a mistranslation on your part but the switch does support hardware video decoding on h.264, h.265 / hevc, vp8, and vp9, its just that the switch gpu is so different from traditional gpus (like intel integrated graphics, nvidia gtx, etc) that they use different coding to interface with the hardware acceleration (so some apps like plex don't support it).

on another note, the nintendo switch also can run Android so you might wan't to look into that as well for running kodi or plex.

No, it's my fault that I didn't specify.
What he said was, despite the api dedicated to the x1 series, it is strange that it does not support h264. Also because nvidia shield is used as a media server and 100% supports "Accelerated GStreamer" api. It is probably due to the fact that the "fork" reader for linux systems does not have those api. As for android (it is obviously another os that I will try) only that the battery goes down from what I understand because it does not support deep states.Thanks anyway, tomorrow or later I'll update with the tests.

 

[The Official GMan]

No, it's my fault that I didn't specify.
What he said was, despite the api dedicated to the x1 series, it is strange that it does not support h264. Also because nvidia shield is used as a media server and 100% supports "Accelerated GStreamer" api. It is probably due to the fact that the "fork" reader for linux systems does not have those api. As for android (it is obviously another os that I will try) only that the battery goes down from what I understand because it does not support deep states.Thanks anyway, tomorrow or later I'll update with the tests.

I didn't realize you were so knowledgeable. For your information, I use the gstreamer omx and v4l2 apis on my nintendo switch under ubuntu (for a custom OBS install actually). Both decode and encode work well but for my purpose I find that too much cpu is used when trying to decode and encode at the same time (one 1080 60 h264 decode one 1080 60 render and one 1080 60 h264 encode) but one hevc 1080 60 decode should work fine. Here is the documentation for most up to date tegra x1 gstreamer for your reference https://developer.download.nvidia.c...Ckt4ikOdv-6uM6nO62VhOCpoy7k8l0lIyWyi5nd53lr2w

 

[Deleted User]

How am I supposed to apply the updates? After I wrote the image to my sd card it no longer shows up in windows explorer.

That's.... weird. It should show a little partition of your SD card of like 150 MBs so you can extract the updates there.

 

[zFerry]

L4T - Ubuntu:
Therefore, ubuntu (the complete one) is not really good. It could be a problem due to the SD (samsung 64gb evo u3). At certain times (randomly) it freezes and only the last window opened works. Forcing a reboot because if it even starts working again after 5 6 minutes then something starts crashing.
Plex The media player does NOT work for a simple reason ... Those who ported to AppImage used a compiler only x86_x86-x64 (because there is no Arm64) so the app will never start and consequently I could not test anything . So I wanted to try both Kodi to see exactly how much (that of the link) was performing ... ... Except that the official Kodi of the Store () was installed as a program that starts as soon as you log in and full screen ... even doing EXIT simply throws you at the ubuntu login and doing the login again kodi returns (besides other blasphemies because it starts vertically and therefore not being able to rotate it is a mess). After putting ubuntu back I tried to put that on the docker but nothing, as soon as you enter the last command to start the docker, different errors come out every time.
Having made an upgrade on ubuntu the bluetooth is gone (it will have updated badly) and therefore not being able to use controller on Kodi and not having an ESC key on the switch I could not even go back by opening the various windows of the plex addon (which led me to the reboot where I later found out that kodi starts as soon as you log in).

Android:
As for android, the thing is much simpler (leaving out some annoying bugs such as rotation), it works perfectly and is (in my experience with both) much more stable and performing. Unfortunately, as I suspected unlike the PMP on Windows / Linux, the PMP on android is not able to write the .ass on the video and therefore every video with the .ass MUST have been transcoded by the PMS (plex media server). So even h264 are transcoded if they have subs in formats like .ass (every video in my library ).
Hevc / x265 is not supported (in this case we should try to understand how the PMP transcoder works for android and try to implement the API for HEVC too).


Conclusions:
Now I try to use linux of the lite version and to make Kodi work (if it manages to make the addon plex with HW support work, I'm ok).

 

[The Official GMan]

@zFerry I basically have to install and build almost all applications from source since most don't have binary downloads for aarch64. As for the freezing issues, I was getting those when I first installed until I added a swap partition, changed my desktop environment to gnome 3.28.2, and changed the minimum cpu frequency. I've been using it like this for a few weeks now and it works pretty great.

BTW: I'm using the same sd card so that isn't the problem

 

[paintispaint]

Are the Joycons supposed to work with the OS? I would love to be able to control the cursor with the sticks and use the buttons for navigation but it doesnt seem to work. In BT when I undock it says they are paired and connected but nothing seems to work, same when docked.


Edit: Nvm searched thread and found guide on getting it working, would be nice to see more joycon integration but this is definitely serviceable!

 

[villalobos]

Extract modules.tar.gz to root if Ubuntu partition, but preserve permissions, then erase the modules.tar.gz file, and initramfs should work.

Also, only change in boot.scr, is you need propper path to partition as root.... I overlooked handling partlabel in the initramfs....

Thanks! It fixed bluetooth with 3.0.1 update!

 

[zFerry]

@zFerry I basically have to install and build almost all applications from source since most don't have binary downloads for aarch64. As for the freezing issues, I was getting those when I first installed until I added a swap partition, changed my desktop environment to gnome 3.28.2, and changed the minimum cpu frequency. I've been using it like this for a few weeks now and it works pretty great.

BTW: I'm using the same sd card so that isn't the problem

In the end I did this:
Tried the lite version ... nothing did not even make me install the things that went in full. At some point the bluetooth was gone as the audio devices (no more audio and bt) the settings panel had become windows 3.0 style with almost nothing to configure. So I put Full again ... the first time it travels well, the second crash and low memory, the 3 as the first time, the 4 as the second, the 5 as the first and finally now OBVIOUSLY with the 6 time that I reinstall the full I go in low memory ... Install everything. I open chrome and after one page of github crashes the system. Restart 3 times before being able to install kodi from github. Obviously my configuration from the 3rd time I reinstall is the following: I follow the guide up to the disk resize. the resize I leave 8gb of free space, those 8gb become Swap and swap mount (obviously it doesn't mount itself) then enable automount when the operating system starts. Despite this, it crashes with Kodi for X1 if 1 2 chrome windows are open at the same time. In addition, Kodi was lagging like never before. Counting that it does HW of each stream x264 x265. The good thing is that the switch supports 10-bit HW x265 with Flac / Opus in FHD (ditto x264). I confirm that Ubuntu and Kodi are slowing down because with Android and the plex app (removing the burn for ass) all the x265 and x264 streams that I have in my library work very well.
But even leaving the subtitle burn with applications like VLC and MxPlayer are reproduced without problems (some buffers at the beginning and end of the video). The problem is that on android the .ass are not transcoded from the phone (on plex - PMP) unlike the windows / linux version which instead makes the client transcode. So for me at the moment l4t - ubuntu is useless and I find no other utility.
I know I could take away a lot of things as you say (gnome etc.) but if I do with my usual luck everything explodes and I have to reinstall for the 7th time. Thanks anyway for the support.
PS: in the end I didn't use the Docker version but the official one for X1: h**ps://elinux.org/Jetson/Kodi_(XBMC)

All done with active 2ghz mode

 

[The Official GMan]

@zFerry Sorry to hear about all of your crashing issues (I've never had any). I had system freezes before I swapped over to gnome but haven't had any issues since. Maybe the 2GHz mode is causing your system to crash??? The tegra x1 is supposed to be tested up to 2Ghz but nintendo doesn't ever use it in Horizon (the official OS)

 

[ZachyCatGames]

The tegra x1 is supposed to be tested up to 2Ghz but nintendo doesn't ever use it in Horizon (the official OS)

ODIN is binned/tested at 1785mhz, it is possible for systems with shittier SoCs to have issues at higher speeds.

 

[paintispaint]

I can't get bluetooth audio working with either of my headsets, they both go into HSP/HFP mode in the audio manager and have no audio when I play a test sound, changing them to a2dp does nothing and when I go back to the menu it shows HSP/HFP again.

Any ideas?

 

[Raging-Lion]

Hey guys, I have a quick question / issue...

I managed to get everything installed and running, came across some issues updating with dependencies, always hated Linux cause of this... but somehow I managed to overcome some of these issues.
However, there is two files I still can't update.

nvidia-l4t-xusb-firmware
nvidia-l4t-initrd

Can someone help me update these two files or is it not possible?