The setup of the NVIDIA Jetson TX1 starts with a clean installation of NVIDIA's JetPack SDK. To install the JetPack SDK on the Jetson TX1 you need to download and install NVIDIA's SDK Manager onto a separate host machine with a 16.04 or 18.04 Ubuntu operating system. You will need to get an NVIDIA Developer Program Membership to download the SDK Manager.

After downloading the .deb file, you need to install it with apt:

sudo apt install -y ./<path to file>.deb

sudo add-apt-repository main
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo add-apt-repository restricted
sudo add-apt-repository multiverse

If the installation was successful, you should be able to run the SDK Manager, like so:

sdkmanager

When the SDK Manager starts, you first need to log in with your NVIDIA Developer Program Membership account. Next, you will be prompted to select a Jetson model. Select the NVIDIA Jetson TX1 and start connecting the Jetson TX1 to your host machine with the included USB A to USB micro B cable. It needs to be powered off when you connect it. After you have connected it, boot the Jetson TX1 in Force USB Recovery Mode. To do that press and hold down the RECOVERY FORCE button, then press the POWER button, after which you can release the RECOVERY FORCE button. Now when you hit refresh in the SDK Manager, it should say that it's connected to the Jetson TX1.

You can now start the installation.

At some point it may ask you to put the Jetson TX1 in Force USB Recovery Mode again. Just repeat the steps described above, to put it in this mode again. When the OS image installation is finished, it will ask you to finalize the Ubuntu installation on the Jetson TX1, which includes creating a default user. The credentials of the default user then need to be entered in the popup of the SDK Manager, so that it can continue installing additional SDK tools.

After the installation finished, disconnect the Jetson TX1 from the host machine.

It's always recommended to keep your installed packages up-to-date by running:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

To install Python 3.8 you first need to make sure that the software-properties-common package is installed:

sudo apt install -y software-properties-common

Then add the deadsnakes PPA to apt, like so:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa

Afterwards, you can install Python 3.8 via apt:

sudo apt install -y python3.8

Also make sure to have pip for Python 3.X installed:

sudo apt install -y python3-pip