OS Setup#

To leverage all Embodied Intelligence SDK features, the target system should meet the recommended system requirements. Also, the target system must have a compatible OS (Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble Numbat) or 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish) Desktop based on your processor type) so that you can install Deb packages from SDK. This section explains the procedure to install a compatible OS on the target system.

Do the following to prepare the target system:

  1. Follow the Ubuntu Installation Guide to install Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble Numbat) or 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish) Desktop with 64bits variant on to the target system.

    Attention: Please review Canonical Intellectual property rights policy regarding Canonical Ubuntu. Note that any redistribution of modified versions of Canonical Ubuntu must be approved, certified or provided by Canonical if you are going to associate it with the Trademarks. Otherwise you must remove and replace the Trademarks and will need to recompile the source code to create your own binaries.

  2. To achieve real-time determinism and utilize the available Intel® silicon features, you need to configure certain BIOS settings. Reboot the target system and access the BIOS (press the Delete or F2 keys while booting to open the BIOS menu).

  3. Select Restore Defaults or Load Defaults, and then select Save Changes and Reset. As the target system boots, access the BIOS again.

  4. Modify the BIOS configuration as listed in the following table.

    Note: The available configurations depend on the platform, BIOS in use, or both. Modify as many configurations as possible.

    Setting Name

    Option

    Setting Menu

    Hyper-Threading

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ CPU Configuration

    Intel (VMX) Virtualization

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ CPU Configuration

    X2APIC

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ CPU Configuration

    Active SOC-North Efficient-cores

    0 (Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 2 processor)
    All (Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 3 processor)*

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ CPU Configuration

    Intel(R) SpeedStep

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control

    Intel(R) Shift Technology

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control

    Intel(R) Turbo Mode

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control

    C States

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control

    HWP Autonomous EPP Grouping

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control

    RC6 (Render Standby)

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ GT - Power Management Control

    MC6 (Media Standby)

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ GT - Power Management Control

    Disable Turbo GT frequency

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ GT - Power Management Control

    Maximum GT frequency

    Default Max Frequency

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ GT - Power Management Control

    Page Close Idle Timeout

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Memory Configuration

    Power Down Mode

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Memory Configuration

    SA GV

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Memory Configuration

    VT-d

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ System Agent (SA) Configuration

    ACPI S3 Support

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ ACPI Settings

    Low Power S0 Idle Capability

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ ACPI Settings

    Native ASPM

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ ACPI Settings

    Legacy IO Low Latency

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ PCH-IO Configuration

    Setting Name

    Option

    Setting Menu

    Hyper-Threading

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ CPU Configuration

    Intel (VMX) Virtualization

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ CPU Configuration

    X2APIC

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ CPU Configuration

    Active SOC-North Efficient-cores

    All

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ CPU Configuration

    Intel(R) SpeedStep

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control

    Intel(R) Shift Technology

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control

    Intel(R) Turbo Mode

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control

    C States

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control

    HWP Autonomous EPP Grouping

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ CPU - Power Management Control

    RC6 (Render Standby)

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ GT - Power Management Control

    MC6 (Media Standby)

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ GT - Power Management Control

    Disable Turbo GT frequency

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ GT - Power Management Control

    Maximum GT frequency

    Default Max Frequency

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Power & Performance ⟶ GT - Power Management Control

    Page Close Idle Timeout

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Memory Configuration

    Power Down Mode

    Auto

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Memory Configuration

    SA GV

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ Memory Configuration

    VT-d

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ System Agent (SA) Configuration

    ACPI S3 Support

    Enabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ ACPI Settings

    Low Power S0 Idle Capability

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ ACPI Settings

    Native ASPM

    Auto

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ ACPI Settings

    Legacy IO Low Latency

    Disabled

    Intel Advanced Menu ⟶ PCH-IO Configuration

    Note*: Active SOC-North Efficient-cores can be enabled all on Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 3 (Panther Lake) processor, while still 0 on Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 2 (Arrow Lake) processor under Real-time Optimization.

Automated Setup Script#

You can automate the software setup flow on this page with:

os_setup_install.sh

Default OS setup automation (locale + APT repositories):

sudo -E ./os_setup_install.sh

Set date/time during setup:

sudo -E ./os_setup_install.sh --set-date "2026-03-17 12:00"

Enable additional options:

sudo -E ./os_setup_install.sh --disable-auto-upgrades --fix-raw-github-host

For all available options:

./os_setup_install.sh --help

This script only automates software configuration. Ubuntu installation and BIOS setup remain manual.

If you prefer, you can skip this script and run the real-time setup script directly from the automated setup section of Real-Time Linux.

Set locale#

Make sure you have a locale which supports UTF-8. If you are in a minimal environment (such as a Docker container), the locale may be something minimal like POSIX. Intel has tested it with the following settings. However, it should be fine if you are using a different UTF-8 supported locale.

locale  # check for UTF-8

sudo apt update && sudo apt install locales
sudo locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
sudo update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8

locale  # verify settings

Set Date and Time#

Use the date command to display the current date and time. If the Linux OS time and date is incorrect, set it to current date and time:

date
sudo date -s "2025-03-30 12:00"

Setup Sources#

This section explains the procedure to configure the APT package manager to use the hosted ECI APT repository.

Set up ECI APT Repository#

  1. Open a terminal prompt which will be used to execute the remaining steps.

  2. Download the ECI APT key to the system keyring:

    sudo -E wget -O- https://eci.intel.com/repos/gpg-keys/GPG-PUB-KEY-INTEL-ECI.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/eci-archive-keyring.gpg > /dev/null

    Note: If error occur during download:

    ERROR: cannot verify eci.intel.com's certificate, issued by ‘CN=Sectigo Public Server Authentication CA OV R36,O=Sectigo Limited,C=GB’:
Self-signed certificate encountered.
To connect to eci.intel.com insecurely, use `--no-check-certificate'.

    You can try the following command:

    sudo apt install --only-upgrade ca-certificates

  3. Add the signed entry to APT sources and configure the APT client to use the ECI APT repository:

    echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/eci-archive-keyring.gpg] https://eci.intel.com/repos/$(source /etc/os-release && echo $VERSION_CODENAME) isar main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/eci.list
echo "deb-src [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/eci-archive-keyring.gpg] https://eci.intel.com/repos/$(source /etc/os-release && echo $VERSION_CODENAME) isar main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/eci.list

    Note: The auto upgrade feature in Canonical Ubuntu will change the deployment environment over time. If you do not want to auto upgrade, execute the following commands to disable the feature:

    sudo sed -i "s/APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists \"1\"/APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists \"0\"/g" "/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades"
sudo sed -i "s/APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade \"1\"/APT::Unattended-Upgrade \"0\"/g" "/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades"
sudo sed -i 's/APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1"/APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "0"/' /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic
sudo sed -i 's/APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages "1"/APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages "0"/' /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic
sudo sed -i 's/APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "1"/APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "0"/' /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic

    Disables/hides the update notifier from automatically starting at login.

    echo "Hidden=true" | sudo tee -a /etc/xdg/autostart/update-notifier.desktop

  4. Configure the ECI APT repository to have higher priority over other repositories:

    sudo bash -c 'echo -e "Package: *\nPin: origin eci.intel.com\nPin-Priority: 1000" >> /etc/apt/preferences.d/isar'
sudo bash -c 'echo -e "Package: libze-intel-gpu1,libze1,intel-opencl-icd,libze-dev,intel-ocloc\nPin: origin repositories.intel.com/gpu/ubuntu\nPin-Priority: 1000" >> /etc/apt/preferences.d/isar'

Set up ROS2 APT Repository#

  1. Ensure that the Ubuntu Universe repository is enabled.

    sudo apt install -y software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository -y universe

  2. The ros-apt-source packages provide keys and apt source configuration for the various ROS repositories.

    Installing the ros2-apt-source package will configure ROS 2 repositories for your system. Updates to repository configuration will occur automatically when new versions of this package are released to the ROS repositories.

    sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl -y
export ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/ros-infrastructure/ros-apt-source/releases/latest | grep -F "tag_name" | awk -F'"' '{print $4}')
curl -L -o /tmp/ros2-apt-source.deb "https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/ros-apt-source/releases/download/${ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION}/ros2-apt-source_${ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION}.$(. /etc/os-release && echo ${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-${VERSION_CODENAME}})_all.deb"
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/ros2-apt-source.deb