L4T 28.1 different between TX2 dev kit and downloaded version

Greetings!

I’m working on a software project that involves creating reliably reproducible boot disk images for the Jetson TX2 platform, and we’re using the TX2 dev kits for our development work. One of our dev kits had gotten reflashed using the 28.1 packages downloaded from [url]https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/linux-tegra[/url] using these instructions: [url]http://developer2.download.nvidia.com/embedded/L4T/r28_Release_v1.0/BSP/l4t_quick_start_guide.txt[/url]. Another dev kit still had the original load that came on it when it arrived, which (according to /etc/nv_tegra_release) is also 28.1. However, the 28.1 loads aren’t identical. Per nv_tegra_release, the 28.1 that came preloaded on the dev kit is 8 days newer:

“# R28 (release), REVISION: 1.0, GCID: 9436269, BOARD: t186ref, EABI: aarch64, DATE: Fri Jul 28 17:04:29 UTC 2017”

…than what is reported in nv_tegra_release in the downloaded package:

“# R28 (release), REVISION: 1.0, GCID: 9379712, BOARD: t186ref, EABI: aarch64, DATE: Thu Jul 20 07:59:31 UTC 2017”

There are also 7 file differences farther down in nv_tegra_release (i.e., different sha1sums):
/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/tegra/libglx.so
/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/tegra/libnvfnetstoredefog.so
/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/tegra/libnvfnetstorehdfx.so
/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/tegra/libnvodm_imager.so
/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/tegra/libscf.so
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so

So, are the dev kits coming with an unofficial build a step toward 28.2? As a course of procedure, should we just automatically flash all of our dev kits to the version from the website, or is what is coming on the dev kits better and should we use that as our baseline load?

Also, out of personal curiosity, what does the GCID mean? Looking around at older forum posts, it seems to increase as version numbers increase, so I’d assume it’s related to builds somehow…

Anyway, any insights anybody could share would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!!

This isn’t an answer, but something to consider. Those files are from the “apply_binaries.sh” step and stored in the “nv_tegra/nvidia_drivers.tbz2” archive. Sometimes a regular “apt-get upgrade” might interfere. Before figuring out differences on a system which has been kept up-to-date be sure you have the intended files:

sha1sum -c /etc/nv_tegra_release

The file “/etc/nv_tegra_release” is itself part of this archive (and thus an indicator of the driver package). If a file fails you can typically unpack “nv_tegra/nvidia_drivers.tbz2” in the root of the Jetson to put originals back in place. The only file I’ve seen get stepped on by a regular update is the libglx.so file in the Xorg directory.

Thanks for your input, linuxdev!

I just got a notification that L4T 28.2 dropped, so at this point I’m considering my question overcome by events… :)