Jetson Orin Nano and Orin NX: How to check your JetPack version
and the L4T release under it.
On a Jetson Orin Nano or Orin NX running Linux for Tegra (L4T), two commands tell you what is installed. This page covers what each check reports, how L4T numbers map to JetPack releases, and why the exact point release matters before you run apt upgrade.
01 - The short answer
Two commands.
Both commands report the Linux for Tegra (L4T) release. JetPack is built on L4T: JetPack 7.2.1 uses L4T 39.2.1, and the version table has the rest.
Run on the Jetson
cat /etc/nv_tegra_release
dpkg-query --show nvidia-l4t-coreThe first line of /etc/nv_tegra_release gives the L4T major release (for example R36) and its revision. NVIDIA's L4T 36.5 developer guide points to this file for the current software version.
dpkg-query prints the package name, nvidia-l4t-core (NVIDIA's L4T core package), then its installed version. In the version, the part before the hyphen is the L4T release: NVIDIA's r36.5 repository lists 36.5.0-20260115194252 for L4T 36.5.0.
Look that L4T release up in the version table to get the JetPack release. If the JetPack meta-package is installed, dpkg-query --show nvidia-jetpack gives the JetPack number directly.
Checked against NVIDIA documentation · 27 September 2026 · L4T 39 added 19 October 2026
02 - L4T meaning
What does L4T mean?
L4T stands for Linux for Tegra. It is NVIDIA's board support package for Jetson modules: the Linux kernel, bootloader, NVIDIA drivers, flashing utilities and an Ubuntu-based root file system. JetPack is built on it and adds CUDA, cuDNN and TensorRT. L4T's first number tells you the JetPack line: JetPack 6.2.2 uses L4T 36.5, and JetPack 7.2.1 uses L4T 39.2.1.
That first number is the major release. For the Orin Nano and Orin NX, NVIDIA's JetPack archive pairs L4T 35 with JetPack 5, L4T 36 with JetPack 6 and L4T 39 with JetPack 7. Moving between major releases is not an ordinary apt upgrade: NVIDIA's developer guide does not support going from 35.x to 36.x, and section 09 covers L4T 36 to 39. The version table lists each release.
Checked against NVIDIA documentation · 31 October 2026
03 - Two version numbers
L4T and JetPack are different numbers.
JetPack is L4T plus the accelerated stack: CUDA, cuDNN, TensorRT, VPI and the multimedia libraries, as NVIDIA lists them on its JetPack 6.2.2 page. Each JetPack release names the L4T release inside it, and the two numbers do not move in step. In NVIDIA's JetPack archive, JetPack 6.2 is L4T 36.4.3 and JetPack 6.2.2 is L4T 36.5.0.
The compute stack can also move without L4T. NVIDIA's JetPack 5.1.1 page, like the later 5.1.x pages, says that since JetPack 5.0.2 you can upgrade CUDA, from CUDA 11.8 onwards, without updating L4T. NVIDIA's JetPack 6 documentation calls this the upgradable compute stack. Either way, a system's CUDA version can be newer than the table below shows for its L4T release, so check the installed packages rather than inferring them.
04 - Four ways to check
Four ways to check, and what each tells you.
1. /etc/nv_tegra_release
L4T release and revision
cat /etc/nv_tegra_releaseThe first line names the L4T major release and the revision. NVIDIA's package manifest lists the file as the driver versioning file. The same file also lists checksums for NVIDIA's driver files, which is why NVIDIA's flashing guide runs sha1sum -c /etc/nv_tegra_release to confirm a driver update.
Use it for a quick answer and in scripts. It does not tell you whether the JetPack components are installed.
2. dpkg-query on nvidia-l4t-core
Installed L4T core package
dpkg-query --show nvidia-l4t-coreThis prints the package name and its installed version, read from dpkg's own database (see the dpkg-query manual). NVIDIA's L4T package versions start with the L4T release, as in the example file name NVIDIA uses in its developer guide: nvidia-l4t-core_36.3.0-20240506102626_arm64.deb.
NVIDIA makes most L4T packages depend on nvidia-l4t-core and uses it to block partial upgrades across major releases, which makes it the one package to ask about.
3. nvidia-jetpack: installed, or only available?
Installed JetPack meta-package
dpkg -l nvidia-jetpack
dpkg-query --show nvidia-jetpackThese tell you whether the JetPack meta-package is installed, and which version. In dpkg -l output, ii at the start of the line means the package is selected for install and is installed (the codes are listed in the dpkg-query manual). The version starts with the JetPack release: NVIDIA's package repository lists nvidia-jetpack 6.2.2+b24 for JetPack 6.2.2. On JetPack 7 a hyphen replaces the plus sign: the r39.2 repository lists 7.2.1-b49 for JetPack 7.2.1.
apt-cache show nvidia-jetpack answers a different question. It prints the package records apt holds from the repository lists (see the apt-cache manual), so it tells you what you could install, not what is installed. With NVIDIA's repository in your apt sources it returns a record whether or not the package is on the system. NVIDIA's own JetPack documentation uses apt show nvidia-jetpack to list the packages inside the meta-package, which is what it is good for.
4. jtop and jetson_release (third party)
jetson-stats, a third-party package by Raffaello Bonghi, provides jtop and jetson_release. Both show the L4T and JetPack numbers on one screen, next to live system stats.
Its source reads /etc/nv_tegra_release, falls back to dpkg-query on nvidia-l4t-core, and turns the L4T number into a JetPack number with its own lookup table. If your L4T release is newer than your copy of jetson-stats, the JetPack field can come back empty. The two NVIDIA checks above are the reference.
05 - Missing meta-package
When nvidia-jetpack is not installed.
L4T runs without the JetPack meta-package. On such a system the two L4T checks still answer, dpkg -l nvidia-jetpack shows no installed package, and components such as the CUDA toolkit, cuDNN and TensorRT may be missing.
This page does not cover installing JetPack. NVIDIA's JetPack documentation covers it with sudo apt install nvidia-jetpack, written for an NVIDIA developer kit running L4T 36.2 or newer. The same page describes two smaller meta-packages: nvidia-jetpack-runtime, without samples and documentation, and nvidia-jetpack-dev, with everything needed for development.
06 - Compute stack
Checking CUDA, cuDNN and TensorRT versions.
Installed compute stack
dpkg -l | grep -E 'cuda-toolkit|libcudnn|tensorrt'
/usr/local/cuda/bin/nvcc --versionThe first command lists the installed packages for each component. The package names come from NVIDIA's JetPack package list. Their version suffixes change between releases, so the pattern matches on the start of each name.
nvcc --version prints the CUDA compiler version (see NVIDIA's nvcc reference). NVIDIA's CUDA installation guide has you add the toolkit's bin directory to PATH yourself, and /usr/local/cuda is a symlink to the installed toolkit, so call nvcc by its full path if the short name is not found. nvcc is only present when the CUDA toolkit is installed.
For reference, NVIDIA lists CUDA 12.6, TensorRT 10.3 and cuDNN 9.3 for JetPack 6.2.2 on its JetPack 6.2.2 page. Because of the upgradable compute stack, what dpkg reports on your system is what you have.
07 - Containers
Checking from inside a container.
Inside a container, dpkg-query reads the container's own package database, so it describes the image, not the host. To learn what the board runs, run the checks on the host.
NVIDIA tags its l4t-base and l4t-jetpack containers by L4T release. NGC's l4t-base page says each tag is intended for devices running that L4T release, with l4t-base:r34.1 on L4T r34.1 as its example. Check the host's L4T release first, then pick the image tag to match.
NGC does not publish a tag for every point release. On 27 September 2026 the newest tag on l4t-jetpack is r36.4.0 and the newest on l4t-base is r36.2.0. Neither page says which tag to use on a release without its own, so treat a nearby tag as untested on your release until your workload has run in it.
tegrastats inside a container
A thread on NVIDIA's forum, which predates the Orin modules, reports the EMC_FREQ and GR3D_FREQ fields dropping out of tegrastats inside a container while tegrastats on the host still showed them. In the thread, NVIDIA's moderator replies that tegrastats should be run with sudo, and a later user reports the fields coming back after mounting /sys/kernel/debug into the container. If the numbers look incomplete in a container, compare them with tegrastats on the host. We cover the tool in reading tegrastats and setting power modes.
08 - Version map
JetPack 7.2.x, 6 and 5.1.x to L4T, for Orin Nano and Orin NX.
NVIDIA lists the Orin Nano and Orin NX series for every release below, which covers the Jetson Orin Nano 4GB, Orin Nano 8GB, Orin NX 8GB and Orin NX 16GB. For JetPack 7.2 and 7.2.1 the JetPack pages say Jetson Orin Family, and the four modules are named in the devices table of NVIDIA's L4T 39.2 and L4T 39.2.1 developer guides.
L4T pairings are as NVIDIA's JetPack archive writes them, with the exact revision added for JetPack 6.1 and 7.2. Ubuntu, kernel and CUDA come from each release's NVIDIA page, linked in the last column.
| JetPack | L4T | Ubuntu | Kernel | CUDA | L4T released | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.2.1 | 39.2.1 | 24.04 | 6.8 | 13.2.2 | August 2026 | NVIDIA JetPack 7.2.1 |
| 7.2 | 39.2 (39.2.0) | 24.04 | 6.8 | 13.2.1 | June 2026 | NVIDIA JetPack 7.2 |
| 6.2.3 | 36.5.2 | 22.04 | 5.15 | 12.6 | August 2026 | NVIDIA JetPack 6.2.3 |
| 6.2.2 | 36.5.0 | 22.04 | 5.15 | 12.6 | February 2026 | NVIDIA JetPack 6.2.2 |
| 6.2.1 | 36.4.4 | 22.04 | 5.15 | 12.6 | June 2025 | NVIDIA JetPack 6.2.1 |
| 6.2 | 36.4.3 | 22.04 | 5.15 | 12.6 | January 2025 | NVIDIA JetPack 6.2 |
| 6.1 | 36.4 (36.4.0) | 22.04 | 5.15 | 12.6 | September 2024 | NVIDIA JetPack 6.1 |
| 6.0 | 36.3 | 22.04 | 5.15 | 12.2 | May 2024 | NVIDIA JetPack 6.0 |
| 6.0 DP | 36.2 | 22.04 | 5.15 | 12.2 | December 2023 | NVIDIA JetPack 6.0 DP |
| 5.1.7 | 35.6.5 | 20.04 | 5.10 | 11.4 | July 2026 | NVIDIA JetPack 5.1.7 |
| 5.1.6 | 35.6.4 | 20.04 | 5.10 | 11.4 | February 2026 | NVIDIA JetPack 5.1.6 |
| 5.1.5 | 35.6.1 / 35.6.2 | 20.04 | 5.10 | 11.4 | March 2025 / May 2025 | NVIDIA JetPack 5.1.5 |
| 5.1.4 | 35.6.0 | 20.04 | 5.10 | 11.4 | September 2024 | NVIDIA JetPack 5.1.4 |
| 5.1.3 | 35.5.0 | 20.04 | 5.10 | 11.4 | February 2024 | NVIDIA JetPack 5.1.3 |
| 5.1.2 | 35.4.1 | 20.04 | 5.10 | 11.4 | August 2023 | NVIDIA JetPack 5.1.2 |
| 5.1.1 | 35.3.1 | 20.04 | 5.10 | 11.4 | March 2023 | NVIDIA JetPack 5.1.1 |
Ubuntu is the release NVIDIA's root file system is based on. The kernel column is the kernel line NVIDIA states for the release; the exact kernel is in section 09.
NVIDIA's JetPack archive does not date its releases. The L4T released column is the month NVIDIA's L4T release archive gives for the L4T release in that row, which is why JetPack 5.1.5, paired with two L4T releases, has two.
JetPack 5.1 (L4T 35.2.1) is left out. NVIDIA's JetPack 5.1 page brings in the Orin NX 16GB, and the Orin Nano 4GB, Orin Nano 8GB and Orin NX 8GB arrive in JetPack 5.1.1.
JetPack 7.0 (L4T 38.2 / 38.2.1) and 7.1 (L4T 38.4) are left out: their NVIDIA pages list Jetson Thor hardware only, and NVIDIA's L4T 39.2 release notes say that release added the Jetson Orin family to JetPack 7.
The archive writes JetPack 6.1 as L4T 36.4, which means 36.4.0: NVIDIA's L4T 36.4 release page says that release is part of JetPack 6.1 and labels its driver package R36.4.0. L4T 36.4.3, 36.4.4 and 36.4.7, all in NVIDIA's r36.4 package repository, are later releases, not JetPack 6.1. In the same way, the archive writes JetPack 7.2 as L4T 39.2, and NVIDIA's JetPack 7.2 page labels its driver package R39.2.0. L4T 39.2.1 is JetPack 7.2.1.
Not every L4T point release has its own JetPack number. NVIDIA's r36.4 package repository carries L4T 36.4.7, which the JetPack archive does not list. If your revision is not in this table, dpkg-query --show nvidia-jetpack tells you which JetPack meta-package is installed.
Our Super Mode guide shows which of these releases have Super Mode, and whether an apt upgrade turns it on.
09 - Before you upgrade
Why the kernel version matters before apt upgrade.
A kernel module built outside the kernel tree is built against one kernel's configuration and headers, and installs under /lib/modules/ for that kernel release. The Linux kernel documentation covers both. When the kernel changes, a module built for the old one needs a build for the new one. That applies to any kernel module installed outside NVIDIA's own packages, such as a third-party camera or sensor driver.
NVIDIA delivers L4T point releases through apt. Its developer guide moves to a new point release with sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade, and a point release can bring a new kernel. The kernel package versions in NVIDIA's repository:
| L4T | JetPack | Kernel package | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 39.2.1 | 7.2.1 | 6.8.12-tegra | NVIDIA repository |
| 39.2.0 | 7.2 | 6.8.12-tegra | NVIDIA repository |
| 36.5.2 | 6.2.3 | 5.15.199-tegra | NVIDIA repository |
| 36.5.0 | 6.2.2 | 5.15.185-tegra | NVIDIA repository |
| 36.4.7 | Not listed in the archive | 5.15.148-tegra | NVIDIA repository |
| 36.4.4 | 6.2.1 | 5.15.148-tegra | NVIDIA repository |
| 36.4.3 | 6.2 | 5.15.148-tegra | NVIDIA repository |
L4T 39 is a new major release, not a point release. NVIDIA's L4T 39.2.1 developer guide lists image-based over-the-air updates to 39.2.1 for Orin NX and Orin Nano series modules on the Jetson Orin NX/Nano carrier board, from L4T 35.5.0, 35.6.x, 36.3.0, 36.4.x and 36.5.0. L4T 36.5.2 (JetPack 6.2.3) is not in that list. The guide's apt instructions cover point and minor releases and say nothing about moving from L4T 36 to L4T 39.
Before you upgrade, see what apt would change and which kernel you are on:
Before sudo apt upgrade
apt list --upgradable
uname -rapt list --upgradable is the step NVIDIA's guide runs before a point-release upgrade; look for nvidia-l4t-kernel in its output. uname -r prints the running kernel, and it is how NVIDIA's L4T test plan checks the kernel version.
Worked example: curve-extras
curve-extras v0.2.0, our battery and IMU package, installs kernel modules. It was built for Orin NX on CB302B, JetPack 6.2.2, L4T 36.5, kernel 5.15.185-tegra, and its page lists no other versions.
NVIDIA's r36.5 repository now also carries L4T 36.5.2 (JetPack 6.2.3), whose kernel package is 5.15.199-tegra. On a system running curve-extras, check its requirements before you run sudo apt upgrade.
10 - On the CB302B
What we publish for the CB302B.
The CB302B runs Linux for Tegra on Jetson Orin with NVIDIA JetPack, and the checks on this page are L4T checks. Native Android 17 / LineageOS 24 (beta) is a separate software environment.
The one configuration we publish versions for is the curve-extras battery and IMU package for the CB302B: built for Orin NX on CB302B, JetPack 6.2.2, L4T 36.5, kernel 5.15.185-tegra. We make no other version claims here.
We have not confirmed JetPack 7 on the CB302B, so the JetPack 7.2 and 7.2.1 rows in the version table are NVIDIA's information for the Orin Nano and Orin NX modules, not a CB302B claim.
The CB302B Jetson Orin Nano and Orin NX carrier board takes the Jetson Orin Nano 4GB, Orin Nano 8GB, Orin NX 8GB and Orin NX 16GB. If you are still picking one, start with how to choose a Jetson module. The bare board and the Curve Developer Kit are both on our NVIDIA Jetson carrier boards page.
As published on /docs/extras
11 - Next
Check before you upgrade.
curve-extras lists the exact JetPack, L4T and kernel it was built for. The CB302B is not shipping yet: a reservation joins the waitlist, and no payment is taken.
Written against NVIDIA documentation current on 27 September 2026, with JetPack 7.2 and 7.2.1 added from NVIDIA's pages on 19 October 2026 and the L4T definition on 31 October 2026. Re-check at the next JetPack release.
Curve Reality - Rev 2026.04
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