Find compute unit alternative

[AbBaSaMo]

Overview

The hive is good, but the hive is heavy.. and so the electrical and mechanical team require that we find a more lightweight compute unit for running our software on. A few alternatives exist, each with their own pros and cons and preferences from leads so this task aims to get the highest preference working otherwise the next best and so on.

As for the alternatives, refer to the following table

Pref	Alternative	Pros	Cons
1	MCAV owned Alienware with ubuntu 22.04 install and ROS2 humble	No need to spend money	One of them is in use by UA and breaks when we install zed-ros2-wrapper dependencies The other one needs upgrading from Ubuntu 18.04 to 22.04 (not a biggie) but might also have other issues iirc
2	Buying a Jetson Orin Nano (not nano, ORIN nano)	Fulfils our needs	costs 1.1k AUD (not too much but still a good chunk of our budget)
3	Using our good old (old) Jetson TX2	Already in workshop 2 and we have 2 of them	Requires extra effort to get ROS2 humble working on it as it can only install up to ubuntu 20.04 Since it's old (and from experience) we might encounter general issues working with it

Relevant resources

• Installing 20.04 on a Jetson TX2
• Upgrade ubuntu 18.04 to 22.04
• ROS2 humble installation guide
• ESDA repo README.md

Acceptance criteria

• [x] Ros2 humble working on any of the 3 listed devices from highest to lowest preference

Todo

• [x] Install ubuntu 22.04 on the 18.04 alienware
• [x] Install all deps and ensure the ESDA repo can be run [note the alienware needs a CUDA enabled NVIDIA GPU]
• [ ] If this doesn't work, Saami and I have found the Jetson Orin Nano (again note, Orin nano is different from the nano) should be suitable but double check and do some research including looking into system requirements for drivers and dependencies we use on top of requirements for ROS2 humble
• [ ] Negotiate purchase of Jetson Orin nano
• [ ] Setup and install deps on Orin nano
• [ ] If you have gotten to this stage and neither the Alienware nor the Orin nano work, then begin your attempt at configuring the Jetson TX2s (we have 2 in WS2, do both so there are 2 copies to work with)

[Rikidink]

Error when booting into the Alienware laptop:

"The (VGA Fan) fan failed to respond correctly" Error was fixed by updating the BIOS on the laptop as per this guide. After that successfully booted into Ubuntu after some waiting on the "booting into insecure mode..." screen. NOTE: This is not really an error, you can press continue on the error screen and it'll still boot.

[Rikidink]

Following this forum post to upgrade from Ubuntu 18.04 -> 22.04:

At the sudo do-release-upgrade When upgrading from 18.04 to 20.04.

Got "Could not calculate the upgrade" error seemingly because of incompatible/broken packages between 18.04 and 20.04.

Error in /var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log : 453 ERROR Dist-upgrade failed: 'E:Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.'

Resolved by removing python-dev: sudo apt remove python-dev sudo apt autoremove

[Rikidink]

Finished update to 22.04. Installing ESDA repo (and dependencies) but installing nvidia and cuda drivers as per ESDA repo readme breaks Ubuntu:

# install driver
sudo apt-get install -y nvidia-driver-550-open
sudo apt-get install -y cuda-drivers-550

Entered recovery mode and deleted drivers to get it in a bootable state again:

sudo apt-get purge nvidia*

(Relevant forum post regarding the issue.)

Installed recommended drivers along with CUDA Toolkit according to the following sources:

• Installing NVIDIA drivers on Linux
• NVIDIA CUDA Installation guide on Linux (section 2).

[AbBaSaMo]

@Rikidink this is the same issue we encountered with the other Alienware we have that is currently used for the Streetdrone project.

See if any of the suggested fixes below work:

• https://askubuntu.com/questions/955589/ubuntu-will-not-boot-normally-after-nvidia-driver-install
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/1129516/black-screen-at-boot-after-nvidia-driver-installation-on-ubuntu-18-04-2-lts
• https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/i-cannot-boot-ubuntu-22-04-after-installing-latest-nvidia-driver/251267/13

As a summary, some suggest using an older version of the driver, others suggest deleting certain files that somehow fix the issue. Once these and any other issues have been exhausted and we know it definitely won't work, let me know and we can close the issue until we get our hands on the orin nano.

[Rikidink]

The Alienware can now run the stack (NOTE: used the sensor-integration branch of the ESDA repo). Closing issue temporarily until getting the Orin Nano to test on as well.