packaging

Flash Package Generation & Distribution

This document covers how to generate self-contained flash packages and publish them to GitHub Releases. Customers can then flash a Jetson without cloning the repo or building from source.

Generating a Flash Package

After running build_kernel.sh, generate a flash package:

./packaging/generate_flash_package.sh

No Jetson needs to be connected. The package includes DTBs for all module variants (Orin Nano 4GB/8GB, Orin NX 8GB/16GB) — the correct one is selected automatically at flash time.

The output is saved to the project root, e.g. ark-pab-v3-nvme-super.tar.gz.

Options

Flag	Description
--sdcard	Generate a package for SD card instead of NVMe
--no-super	Target the non-super module variant

# Generate for SD card
./packaging/generate_flash_package.sh --sdcard

# Non-super module variant
./packaging/generate_flash_package.sh --no-super

Output

If the package is under 2GB, you get a single .tar.gz. If it exceeds 2GB (the GitHub Releases per-file limit), it is automatically split into 1.9GB parts in a _split/ directory.

Publishing a Release

After generating and testing the flash package:

./packaging/publish_release.sh v1.0.0

This script:

1. Creates a git tag and pushes it
2. Creates a GitHub Release with flashing instructions
3. Uploads the flash package and flash_from_package.sh

Requires the GitHub CLI (gh). Install with sudo apt install gh and authenticate with gh auth login.

Flashing from a Package (Customer)

Customers download and run the flash script — it handles everything:

curl -LO https://github.com/ARK-Electronics/ark_jetson_kernel/releases/download/<version>/flash_from_package.sh
chmod +x flash_from_package.sh
./flash_from_package.sh <version>

Or to flash the latest release:

./flash_from_package.sh

The script downloads the package from GitHub Releases, reassembles if split, extracts, waits for a Jetson in recovery mode, and flashes. No build tools or kernel source needed — just an Ubuntu 22.04 host with USB.

A local .tar.gz or split directory can also be passed directly:

./flash_from_package.sh ark-pab-v3-nvme-super.tar.gz

Workflow Summary

./build_kernel.sh                              # build the kernel
./packaging/generate_flash_package.sh          # generate ark-*.tar.gz / _split
# ... test the package on a Jetson ...
./packaging/publish_release.sh v1.0.0          # tag, upload to GitHub Releases