Get Started With Jetson Nano Developer Kit | NVIDIA Developer

Items not Included

You’ll also need:

microSD card (32GB UHS-1 minimum recommended) USB keyboard and mouse Computer display (HDMI or DP) Micro-USB power supply

Initially, a computer with Internet connection and the ability to flash your microSD card is also required.

Items for Getting Started

microSD Card

The Jetson Nano Developer Kit uses a microSD card as a boot device and for main storage. It’s important to have a card that’s fast and large enough for your projects; the minimum recommended is a 32 GB UHS-1 card.

See the instructions below to flash your microSD card with operating system and software.

Micro-USB Power Supply

You’ll need to power the developer kit with a good quality power supply that can deliver 5V⎓2A at the developer kit’s Micro-USB port. Not every power supply promising “5V⎓2A” will actually do this.

As an example of a good power supply, NVIDIA has validated Adafruit’s 5V 2.5A Switching Power Supply with 20AWG MicroUSB Cable (GEO151UB-6025) . It was specifically designed to overcome common problems with USB power supplies; see the linked product page for details.

The stated power output capability of a USB power supply can be seen on its label.

Actual power delivery capabilities of USB power supplies do vary. Please see the Jetson Nano Developer Kit User Guide for additional information.

Write Image to the microSD Card

To prepare your microSD card, you’ll need a computer with Internet connection and the ability to read and write SD cards, either via a built-in SD card slot or adapter.

Download the Jetson Nano Developer Kit SD Card Image , and note where it was saved on the computer.

Write the image to your microSD card by following the instructions below according to your computer’s operating system: Windows, macOS, or Linux.

Instructions for Chrome OS

[FILL_THIS_PART]

After your microSD card is ready, proceed to set up your developer kit .

Instructions for Windows

Format your microSD card using SD Memory Card Formatter from the SD Association.

Download, install, and launch SD Memory Card Formatter for Windows .

Select card drive

Select “Quick format”

Leave “Volume label” blank

Click “Format” to start formatting, and “Yes” on the warning dialog

Use Etcher to write the Jetson Nano Developer Kit SD Card Image to your microSD card

Download, install, and launch Etcher .

Click “Flash!” It will take Etcher about 10 minutes to write and validate the image if your microSD card is connected via USB3.

After Etcher finishes, Windows may let you know it doesn’t know how to read the SD Card. Just click Cancel and remove the microSD card.

You can either write the SD card image using a graphical program like Etcher, or via command line.

Etcher Instructions

Do not insert your microSD card yet.

Download, install, and launch Etcher .

If you have no other external drives attached, Etcher will automatically select the microSD card as target device. Otherwise, click “Select drive” and choose the correct device.

Click “Flash!” Your Mac may prompt for your username and password before it allows Etcher to proceed It will take Etcher about 10 minutes to write and validate the image if your microSD card is connected via USB3.

After Etcher finishes, your Mac may let you know it doesn’t know how to read the SD Card. Just click Eject and remove the microSD card.

Command Line Instructions

Do not insert your microSD card yet. Waiting will help you discover correct disk device name in steps below.

Open the Terminal app: Use this command to list any external disk devices already attached to your Mac:


    diskutil list external | fgrep '/dev/disk'

For example, if you already have a USB drive attached to your Mac, the result will look similar to this:

Use this command to remove any existing partitions from the microSD card, ensuring MacOS will let you write to it. BE VERY CAREFUL to specify the correct disk device.


    sudo diskutil partitionDisk /dev/disk
    
     <n>
    
    1 GPT "Free Space" "%noformat%" 100%

For example:

Use this command to write the zipped SD card image to the microSD card. Note the use of /dev/rdisk instead of /dev/disk:


    /usr/bin/unzip -p ~/Downloads/jetson_nano_devkit_sd_card.zip | sudo /bin/dd of=/dev/rdisk
    
     <n>
    
    bs=1m

For example:

You can either write the SD card image using a graphical program like Etcher, or via command line.

Etcher Instructions

Download, install, and launch Etcher . It will take Etcher 10-15 minutes to write and validate the image if your microSD card is connected via USB3.

After Etcher finishes, eject the SD Card using Files application:

Open the Terminal application by pressing Ctrl + Alt + t .

Insert your microSD card, then use a command like this to show which disk device was assigned to it:


    dmesg | tail | awk '$3 == "sd" {print}'

In this example, we can see the 16GB microSD card was assigned /dev/sda:

Use this command to write the zipped SD card image to the microSD card:


    /usr/bin/unzip -p ~/Downloads/jetson_nano_devkit_sd_card.zip |
                                                    sudo /bin/dd of=/dev/sd
    
     <x>
    
    bs=1M status=progress

For example: When the dd command finishes, eject the disk device from the command line:


    sudo eject /dev/sd
    
     <x>

Physically remove microSD card from the computer.

After your microSD card is ready, proceed to Setup your developer kit .

Setup and First Boot

There are two ways to interact with the developer kit: 1) with display, keyboard and mouse attached, or 2) in “headless mode” via connection from another computer.

You can conduct the initial setup either way.

Set the developer kit on top of the paper stand.

Power on your computer display and connect it.

Connect the USB keyboard and mouse.

Connect your Micro-USB power supply (or see the Jetson Nano Developer Kit User Guide for details about using DC a power supply with a barrel jack connector). The developer kit will power on and boot automatically.

First Boot

A green LED next to the Micro-USB connector will light as soon as the developer kit powers on. When you boot the first time, the developer kit will take you through some initial setup, including:

Review and accept NVIDIA Jetson software EULA

Select system language, keyboard layout, and time zone

Create username, password, and computer name

Select APP partition size—it is recommended to use the max size suggested

After Logging In

You will see this screen. Congratulations!

To complete setup when no display is attached to the developer kit, you’ll need to connect the developer kit to another computer and then communicate with it via a terminal application (e.g., PuTTY) to handle the USB serial communication on that other computer.

Note : Headless initial configuration requires the developer kit to be powered by a DC power supply with barrel jack connector, since the Micro-USB port is required to access the initial configuration prompts.

Setup Steps

Unfold the paper stand and place inside the developer kit box.

Insert the microSD card (with system image already written to it) into the slot on the underside of the Jetson Nano module.

Set the developer kit on top of the paper stand.

Check the Jetson Nano Developer Kit User Guide for location of J48 Power Select Header and J25 Power Jack.

Jumper the J48 Power Select Header pins.

Connect your other computer to the developer kit’s Micro-USB port.

Connect a DC power supply to the J25 Power Jack. The developer kit will power on automatically.

Allow 1 minute for the developer kit to boot.

On your other computer, use the serial terminal application to connect via host serial port to the developer kit.

Instructions for ChromeOS

Open the COM port on PuTTY

PuTTY is one of the most widely used terminal applications for accessing serial consoles. You can use other terminal applications, but if you don’t have any on your Windows PC, you can download PuTTY from here .

Open the PuTTY application. When “Session” is selected in the left “Category” pane, input the COM port name for “Serial line” and “115200” for “Speed”.

Locate the tty device

Before connecting to your Jetson developer kit for initial setup, check to see what Serial devices are already shown on your macOS computer.

$ ls /dev/cu.usbmodem*

Connect your macOS computer to the developer kit’s Micro-USB port and run the same command to find what’s newly added.

~$ ls /dev/cu.usbmodem* /dev/cu.usbmodem14133200001053

The new serial device is for your Jetson developer kit.

~$ ls -l /dev/cu.usbmodem* crw-rw-rw- 1 root wheel 18, 19 Oct 2 03:54 /dev/cu.usbmodem14133200001053

Screen command

Screen is already installed by default as part of macOS.

Use the device name discovered previously as a command line option for the `screen` command.

$ sudo screen /dev/cu.usbmodem14133200001053 115200

Terminate screen

To terminate your screen session, press C-a + k (Ctrl + a, then k), then press y on confirmation.

Check

Instructions for Linux

Locate the tty device

Before connecting to your Jetson developer kit for initial setup, check to see what Serial devices are already shown on your Linux computer.

$ dmesg | grep --color 'tty'

Connect your Linux computer to the developer kit’s Micro-USB port and run the same command to find what’s newly added.

$ dmesg | grep --color 'tty'
[xxxxxx.xxxxxx] cdc_acm 1-5:1.2: ttyACM0: USB ACM device

The new serial device is for your Jetson developer kit.

$ ls -l /dev/ttyACM0
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 166, 0 Oct  2 02:45 /dev/ttyACM0

Screen command

Install the Screen program on your Linux computer if it is now already available. For example, use this command to install Screen if you are running Ubuntu.

$ sudo apt-get install -y screen

Use the device name discovered previously as a command line option for the `screen` command.

$ sudo screen /dev/ttyACM0 115200

Terminate screen

To terminate your screen session, press C-a + k (Ctrl + a, then k), then press y on confirmation.

Once connected to the developer kit, hit SPACE if the initial setup screen does not appear automatically.

First Boot

A green LED next to the Micro-USB connector will light as soon as the developer kit powers on. When you boot the first time, the developer kit will take you through some initial setup, including:

Review and accept NVIDIA Jetson software EULA

Select system language, keyboard layout, and time zone

Create username, password, and computer name

Select APP partition size—it is recommended to use the max size suggested

After Logging In

You will see a standard Linux command line prompt in your serial terminal application. Congratulations!

Read the Jetson Nano Developer Kit User Guide, which includes:

Many more details about the developer kit hardware.

Explanations of all the components of NVIDIA JetPack, including developer tools with support for cross-compilation.

Lists of all included samples and sample documentation.

Head to the NVIDIA Jetson Developer Zone for access to all Jetson platform information.

Ask questions or share a project on the NVIDIA Jetson Forums.

Jetson AI Courses and Certification

NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Institute delivers practical hands-on training and certification in AI at the edge for developers, educators, students and lifelong learners. Get the critical AI skills you need to thrive and advance in your career. Earn certificates when you complete these free, open-source courses. Enroll Now >

Check out the Jetson Projects Page

Hello AI World

Get started with deep learning inference for computer vision using pretrained models for image classification and object detection.

Realtime acceleration with TensorRT and live camera streaming.

Code your own recognition program in C++.

JetBot is an open-source AI project for makers, students and enthusiasts who are interested in learning AI and building fun applications.

It’s easy to set up and use and is compatible with many popular accessories.

Several interactive tutorials show you how to harness the power of AI to teach JetBot to follow objects, avoid collisions and more.

JetBot is a great launchpad for creating entirely new AI projects.

Create your own projects

Jetson Nano Developer Kit offers useful tools like the Jetson GPIO Python library, and is compatible with common sensors and peripherals, including many from Adafruit and Raspberry Pi.

Many popular AI frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, Caffe, and MXNet are supported, and Jetson Nano is capable of running multiple neural networks in parallel to process data and drive action.

Power

If you cannot boot your Jetson Nano Developer Kit, the problem may be with your USB power supply.Please use a good quality power supply like this one.

It’s also important to have a good quality cord connecting your power supply to the developer kit:

It’s good to use a power supply with permanently attached cord.

Shorter cables will drop less voltage.

Display

HDMI to DVI adaptors are not supported. Please use a display that accepts HDMI or DP input.