Jetson won't boot after "sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*" inside Docker (original) (raw)

April 22, 2025, 10:10am 1

Hi, I urgently need help.

I’m working on a Jetson Orin NX module mounted on a custom carrier board (JetPack 5.1.2), and I accidentally ran the following command inside a Docker container:

sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-*

Then, after rebooting the host system (not the container), the Jetson won’t boot anymore.
The screen goes blank or the system reboots in a loop. No GUI, no login prompt, just black or a splash screen.

Is there any way to recover the system without doing a full reflash?
I have important data on the device I’d like to preserve.

DavidDDD April 23, 2025, 8:10am 3

Hi,

Could you ssh or minicom to the device?

Thanks

hyeyum1 April 23, 2025, 8:39am 4

I’m able to access the Jetson via minicom, but unfortunately, both network and USB are not working.

DavidDDD April 23, 2025, 8:47am 5

Hi,

Could you execute below to enable the network?

sudo dhclient

Thanks

hyeyum1 April 23, 2025, 10:17am 6

I’ve tried running:

sudo dhclient

but it doesn’t work — there’s no network interface available, and the command doesn’t return any IP address.

Upon further inspection, it looks like all kernel modules have been removed, including the ones for Ethernet and Wi-Fi (e.g., no eth0 or wlan0 listed in /sys/class/net).

Is there any way to recover the network in this situation without reflashing the device?

Since the kernel modules are gone, I assume dhclient cannot function because the interfaces don’t even exist at the kernel level.

Any advice or workaround would be really appreciated. Thank you!

DavidDDD April 24, 2025, 2:45am 7

Hi,

Could you ping 192.168.55.1 from host?
If yes, try to

ssh ${user}@192.168.55.1

Also Where is your important data?
Are they stored in /home/${user}/ or other folder?

Thanks