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 22.04 Desktop) 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:

Follow the Ubuntu Installation Guide to install Ubuntu 22.04 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.
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).
Select Restore Defaults or Load Defaults, and then select Save Changes and Reset. As the target system boots, access the BIOS again.
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.

Real-time Optimization

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 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

Generic (non-real-time)

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

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 ./os_setup_install.sh

Set date/time during setup:

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

Enable additional options:

sudo ./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 Real-Time Linux automated setup.

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.

Make sure that you have the right OS Setup.

Set up ECI APT Repository#

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

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

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"

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#

Ensure that the Ubuntu Universe repository is enabled.

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

Add the ROS 2 GPG key with apt.

sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl -y
sudo curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.key -o /usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg

Note: If your DNS cannot resolve raw.githubusercontent.com, modify the /etc/hosts file to directly connect to the raw.githubusercontent server:

sudo bash -c "echo '185.199.108.133 raw.githubusercontent.com' >> /etc/hosts"

Add the repository to your sources list.

echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg] http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release && echo $UBUNTU_CODENAME) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2.list > /dev/null

Update your apt repository caches after setting up the repositories.
```
sudo apt update
```