Quick Start Guide#

Overview#

In this guide, we will walk you through the steps to quickly install the BSP (Jetson Linux) on your Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit using a bootable installation USB stick.

It’s a new process introduced with JetPack 7.0 that enables you to install the Jetson BSP (Jetson Linux) without using a host Ubuntu PC, making the initial setup process simpler and similar to how you would install Ubuntu on your laptop or a PC.

Attention

Jetson’s bootable installation USB stick employs a very minimal version of Linux and made purely for the purpose of installing the Jetson BSP (Jetson Linux) on Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit.

Unlike Canonical’s official Ubuntu installation USB, it does NOT offer the capability of booting into full Jetson BSP for the purpose of test drive, thus it is not “Live USB” stick in that sense.

What you’ll need#

A laptop or PC (Windows, Mac, or Linux) with at lest 25GB of storage space
A USB flash drive (16GB or larger)

Overall Flow#

graph subgraph sub1 ["Default BSP installation flow"] A(Start) B["Step 1️⃣ Download Jetson ISO image"] C["Step 2️⃣ Create an installation USB stick"] D["Step 3️⃣ Unboxing and setup"] E["Step 4️⃣ Boot from USB stick and install the BSP on NVMe"] F["Step 5️⃣ Boot BSP from NVMe and finish oem-config"] Z(BSP ready!) A ==> B B ==> C C ==> E A ==> D D ==> E E ==> F F ==> Z end

We will show the alternative way to install the BSP (Jetson Linux) in the BSP Installation page.

Steps#

1️⃣ Download ISO image#

First, you need to download the Jetson BSP installation media (”Jetson ISO”) image file from NVIDIA’s website.

Go to JetPack Release Page (https://docs.nvidia.com/jetson/jetpack), find the latest JetPack version for Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit, and download the Jetson ISO image file on to your laptop or PC.

Hint

Fow the review, download the ISO image based on 0807 BSP here (Jetson ISO based on 0807 BSP).

2️⃣ Create installation USB#

To install Jetson BSP (Jetson Linux) on your Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit, we first need to create an installation media by writing the downloaded ISO image to a USB stick.

Caution

You cannot just simply copy the ISO image file to the USB stick on your OS (e.g. Windows Explorer, or Mac Finder). You need to create a bootable USB stick using some special software.

In this guide, we will use Balena Etcher to create a bootable USB stick.

Once you start Etcher, select the downloaded ISO image file, and select the USB stick you want to write the ISO image to.

3️⃣ Unboxing and setup#

Unboxing#

Box

Top slot

Bottom slot with leaflets

Bottom slot exposed

What you find inside the box:

Top slot
- 1x Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit
Bottom slot
- AC power cable(s)
- 2x USB-C to USB-A cables
- 1x DC power supply with USB-C plug

Two setup styles#

You can use Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit in two styles:

Monitor-attached: You use Jetson as standard computer, with a monitor, keyboard and mouse.
Headless, so you use your laptop or a PC to remotely access Jetson, and Jetson will be used as a server.

You can set up Jetson using Jetson BSP installation USB stick in both styles.

Power-on Jetson#

Monitor-attached

Attach a display via HDMI or DisplayPort.
Connect a USB keyboard and mouse.
Attach the bootable installation USB stick (that you created using Etcher on the PC) either on the USB Type-A port or on the USB-C port of Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit.
Connect a power supply.
Boot Jetson by pressing the power button (the middle button in the picture below).

Hint

Check the output on the display and carry out the following steps on the monitor using the keyboard (and the mouse) attached to the Jetson.

Headless

Connect a USB cable from your laptop or PC to the Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit’s Debug-USB port behind the lid cover.
Four (4) USB serial devices should be recognized by your PC.
Launch your terminal program and open the port of the second one, which should correspond to UEFI serial port.

OS

Terminal software

Typical port name

Windows

MobaXTerm, PuTTY

e.g. COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6

Mac

Terminal

e.g. /dev/cu.usbserial-0001, …

Linux

minicom

e.g. /dev/ttyACM0, /dev/ttyACM1, …
Connect the power supply to the Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit.

Boot Jetson by pressing the power button (the middle button in the picture below).

When the Jetson is powered on, you will the pre-boot menus like this on your terminal.

UEFI firmware (version 00.0.0-dev-main_e2eb5_14895_8c875 built on 2025-06-06T08:01:19+00:00)
3ht26x_general-t264repo System firmware version 00.0.0-dev-main_e2eb5_14895_8c875
date 2025-06-06T08:01:19+00:00
ESC   to enter Setup.
F11   to enter Boot Manager Menu.
s     to enter Shell.
Enter to continue boot.

Caution

If you don’t see any output on your terminal, or see something different from the above;

Go back to step 3, open the different USB device/port and try again.
If you still don’t see any output, check the USB cable is properly connected. Check with lsusb command or Device Manager on Windows.

4️⃣ Boot from the USB stick and install the BSP on NVMe#

Caution

If you are repeating this process for some reason (perhaps because you found something went wrong during the installation and want to start over):

Please check the ⚠️ Reinstall with USB (Previously Used Device) section.

UEFI Boot Order Check#

Note

Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit should be pre-configured at the factory to boot from any USB stick if attached (over the default NVMe SSD drive). So you don’t need to check or manually change the boot order in most cases.

Only if you are unsure (and need to change the boot order), click the section below to learn how to check the boot order and change the boot order if needed.

Boot from the installation USB stick#

When your Jetson powers on, it will first show the pre-boot options. After a short timeout or if you press the Enter key, the system will begin booting from the USB stick.

Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit is shipped with factory-flashed UEFI firmware, version 38.0.0-gcid-41245178
You will see the Jetson BSP installation menu as shown below.
Select Jetson Thor options by hitting ↑ (up) and ↓ (down) keys, and press Enter key.
- You will see the Jetson Thor option menu as shown below.
Select Flash Jetson Thor AGX Developer Kit on NVMe 0.2.0-r38.1 by hitting ↑ (up) and ↓ (down) keys, and press Enter key.
- This starts the installation process.
Note

During the installation process, you will white texts scrolling on the screen. You may see screen stuck with following screen for a while.

It will take little less than 15 minutes to complete the installation.
Reboot after BSP installation with Jetson ISO

After about 15 minutes, the installation process will finish and your Jetson will reboot.
Jetson will automatically start the UEFI firmware update process.

Once the UEFI firmware update process is finished, it will reboot again.

5️⃣ Boot BSP from NVMe for the first time#

UEFI firmware update#

Jetson will automatically start the UEFI firmware update process.

Once the UEFI firmware update process is finished, it will reboot again.

Initial software setup#

You can now start the initial Ubuntu setup process (oem-config) to create the default user account and set up other things. Once done, you can start using Jetson with Jetson BSP fully set up.

Monitor-attached

You will see the GUI oem-config screen on your attached monitor.
On the “Welcome” screen, click Next button to proceed to the next step.
On the “Typing” screen, select English (US) or appropriate keyboard layout for your keyboard attached to Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit, and click Next button to proceed to the next step.
On the next screen, read through the “NVIDIA Driver License Agreement” and click Accept button to proceed to the next step.
On the “Network” screen, select your Wi-Fi access point to connect to the internet, or click Skip button to skip the network setup and proceed to the next step.
On the “Time Zone” screen, select your time zone and click Next button to proceed to the next step.
On the “About You” screen, enter your username and other information, and click Next button to proceed to the next step.
On the “Password” screen, enter your password, and click Next button to proceed to the next step.
On the “Setup Complete” screen, click Start Using Ubuntu button to finish the oem-config process.

Headless

Connect a USB cable from your laptop or PC to the Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit’s regular USB-C port (one of the two USB-C ports next to HDMI connector, not the Debug-USB port behind the lid cover).
- You should see “L4T-README” drive mounted on your PC as well.
Launch your terminal program on your laptop or PC and open the port/device.
You will see the CUI oem-config screen on your terminal.
On the initial “License for Customer Use of NVIDIA Software” screen, press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to proceed to the next step.
On the “Select a language” screen, select English - English or language of your choice by using up and down keys, then press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to proceed to the next step.
On the “Select your location” screen, select your location by using up and down keys, then press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to proceed to the next step.
On the “Where are you?” screen, select your time zone by using up and down keys, then press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to proceed to the next step.
On the next screen, press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to leave the system clock set to UTC and proceed to the next step.
On the “Who are you?” screen, enter your full name, and press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to proceed to the next step.
On the next screen, enter the username of your choice, and press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to proceed to the next step.
On the next screen, enter the password of your choice, and press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to proceed to the next step.
On the next screen, enter your password for the confirmation, and press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to proceed to the next step.
- You may get warned for using a weak password. Select “<Yes>” if you are okay with it.
On the next screen, you will proceed to the network configuration.
On the “Network Configuration” screen, select enP2p1s0: Ethernet PCI and press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to proceed to the next step. - It may take sometime to get the IP address assigned to Jetson and get the network interface card set up.
On the next screen, enter the hostname of your choice, and press tab key to select “<Ok>” and press Enter key to proceed to the next step.
It will go through some installation and then boot into the BSP (Jetson Linux).
You should be able to login to the BSP (Jetson Linux) with the username and password you set up in the oem-config process.

🟠 EA Special Instructions#

Special APT repository Setup#

Jetson BSP (Jetson Linux) r38.1 is an Early Access (EA) release, which is not available in the regular NVIDIA APT repository.

Please execute the following command to setup the special APT repository.

sudo mv /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-l4t-apt-source.list \
    /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-l4t-apt-source.list.bak
echo "deb https://repo.download.nvidia.com/jetson/jetson-4fed1671 r38.1 main" \
    | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-l4t-apt-source.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update

Your Next Step#

Congratulation!

You can now start the development on your Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit.

Check JetPack SDK Setup page for installing CUDA and other JetPack component software

⚠️ Reinstall with USB (Previously Used Device)#

If you want to run the same installation process using the installation USB stick on a Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit that has been used or set up before, you need to perform a special operation on UEFI setup menu.

When to use this#

You want a fresh start and need to reinstall the BSP (*Jetson Linux*) on the same device
You received a used Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit and want to instal with the USB stick
Something went wrong in the BSP installation process and you are starting over

Required UEFI change: Enable SOC Display Hand-Off Mode#

Turn on the Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit by pressing the power button (the middle button in the row).
While on the NVIDIA logo screen (when a display is attached) or the pre-boot options screen (in headless mode), hit Esc key repeatedly to enter into the UEFI setup menu.
Select Device Manager by hitting ↑ (up) and ↓ (down) keys, and press Enter key.
Select NVIDIA Configuration by hitting ↑ (up) and ↓ (down) keys, and press Enter key.
Select Boot Configuration by hitting ↑ (up) and ↓ (down) keys, and press Enter key.
Scroll to the next screen by hitting ↓ (down) key repeatedly and select SOC Display Hand-Off Mode, then press Enter key.
Change the mode to Auto by hitting ↓ (down) key and press Enter key. (The original setting should have been Never)
Press F10 key to save the change.
Press Esc key multiple times to exit to the top menu of UEFI setup menu.
Select Reset by hitting ↑ (up) and ↓ (down) keys, and press Enter key.

Why this is required#

During the USB stick installation, the SOC Display Hand-Off mode is required to enable display output, so we must use UEFI framebuffer with the hand-off mode set to Auto. However, for the regular OS usage after the installation, to ensure compatibility with the GPU display driver in JetPack 7.0 (BSP 38.1)), it resets the SOC Display Hand-Off mode to Never.

The issue stems from the fact that the current GPU display driver does not properly support hand-off mode in BSP 38.1 (BSP 38.1).

Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit has UEFI firmware (38.0.0-gcid-41245178) and its setting flashed at the factory in such way it is ready for the installation with the USB stick. But once the installation is done, the SOC Display Hand-Off mode is reset to Never, so it requires the manual re-enabling if to use the USB installation stick again.

🛠️ BSP Install Troubleshoot#

Screen goes black once installation starts#

If you are to use Jetson installation USB stick on the Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit that has been used or set up before, you need to enable the SOC Display Hand-Off mode by going into the UEFI setup menu.

OS	Terminal software	Typical port name
Windows	MobaXTerm, PuTTY	e.g. `COM3`, `COM4`, `COM5`, `COM6`
Mac	Terminal	e.g. `/dev/cu.usbserial-0001`, …
Linux	`minicom`	e.g. `/dev/ttyACM0`, `/dev/ttyACM1`, …