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Ricardo Cauelo Navarro

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BEAGLEBOARD MANUAL GUIDE

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License
Copyright 2010 Ricardo Cauelo Navarro <[email protected]>. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the le named FDL.

Contents

1 Introduction 2 Components 3 Connections 4 Booting up 4.1 SD Memory Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Minicom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 2 6 15 15 16

Introduction

This is a basic illustrated guide about how to connect successfully BeagleBoard to a PC. This guide is aimed to people with no experience in this gadgets and those who need making the board function quickly, at the rst attempt and with no headaches. For this, a pack of components available at the boards website will be used. At this way, the same kind of components will be connected, as there are serveral versions and reviews of the board that include subtle hardware changes -specially, changes related with connectivity-. I also get a Debian GNU/Linux image ready that can be downloaded and copied onto a memory card. So, do not worry any more about placing the memory card into the board and turning it on to start experimenting with the board.

Simplicity is the nal achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art Frdric Chopin

Components
The board used on this guide is a Rev C2 BeagleBoard, used at the Tea project1 . Board specications and other technical details are explained on the Technical Report 1. As this is not the main objective of this guide, lets leave the technical stu aside.

Figura 2.1: Box label

Appart from the board, a serie of components will be used to connect the board to a PC, to supply it and to add supporting-peripheral ports. Components used are included in the kit located at http://specialcomp.com/ beagleboard/RevC2.htm (gura 2.2).
1 In

fact, this guide was written to be enclosed to the project documentation.

Components

Figura 2.2: Components kit for the BeagleBoard Rev C2 In order to avoid undesirable surprises, it is recommended to get a kit, available on that website. It is well-known that this kit works. The board will be connected to a PC via serial cable. As the board does not have a suitable interface to support it, a converter cable will be needed for the boards interface. It is available at http://search.digikey.com/scripts/ DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?name=BBC01-ND. Now you can connect the board to a PC serial port via DE-9 null modem.

Figura 2.3: DE-9 adapter cable Nowadays, this port is not usually included because designers think it is easier to remove this port, in order to put there 2 or 4 additional USB

Components ports. For this reason, you may need a USB Serial adapter cable.

Figura 2.4: USB Serial adapter cable

A 2GB SD memory card is also needed. The bigger the memory is, the better. Actually, it is dicult to nd memory cards with less capacity than 2GB. If you do not have a memory card reader in your PC, be aware that it is also necessary. These things are not included in the memory card kit. Other things you may need are:

An additional null modem serial cable to connect the serial converter of the board to the USB-Serial converter. In my case, I will need a female to female cable.

An adapter to connect the power supply included in the kit because it has North American pins. An adapter like this 2.6 costs approximately e1 (picture 2.6). An Ethernet cable with RJ45 pins to connect the board to a modem, router or whatever.

Components

Figura 2.5: Memory card and card reader

Figura 2.6: Yankee power supply and adapter

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience Albert Einstein

3
Connections

A cleared work surface near from a PC will be used. So, get it one rstly. I have been using my desk, next to my laptop (picture 3.1). This area will be full of cables soon, and everybody knows that, when many tangled cables are together in the same place, they come alive and chaos domains everything, so it is a good idea to draw up a plan for it beforehand.

(a) Not-to-work surface

(b) Adapted not-to-work surface

Figura 3.1: Work area

Here we have the box with the board inside. Im curious and astonished. Lets open it. 6

Connections

Figura 3.2: Opening At last, here is the board! The board is on my palm, so you can notice the size of the board. I have to clarify that my hands are small, this is reason of why the board seems to be bigger than what it really is.

Figura 3.3: Taking the board Handle the board with care, God knows what you have touched before. Take it along the edge or using the plastic wrapping as a tray, like in the picture.

8 The brand is indeed written on the board:

Connections

Figura 3.4: Yes, it is a BeagleBoard Among other things, the OMAP3530 is located inside the chip marked as OMAP3:

Figura 3.5: Here is the chip Now, take the things out of the kit and mount them. Firstly, connect the DE-9 adapter to the board. Look at the picture carefully to see more

Connections in detail where and how to connect it. Take care with the connectors possition, pay attention to the red stripe of the cable.

Figura 3.6: Successful connection of the adapter Connect the hubs feeder cable to the hub. Do not mind about the posibility of getting confused and thinking that the power supply should be connected to the board, because the boards jack does not t the power supplys slot.

Figura 3.7: Hubs power supply and slot

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Connections

Figura 3.8: Hub connected to power supply

Take the power supply cable of the board. USB A connector must be connected in one of the hubs slot, and the power supply plug to the board.

Figura 3.9: Power supply cable

Connections

11

Figura 3.10: Male USB A connector with female USB A

Figura 3.11: Board power supply connection

Now you have only got the serial cable to connect. Use the USB Serial adapter. Connect both DE-9 connectors.

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Connections

Figura 3.12: DE-9 connectors Connect the other end of the USB Serial adapter to the PC.

Figura 3.13: Inminent conection of the adapter to the PC

Connections This is the result:

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Figura 3.14: Laboratory

And is this cable spare? OK. This board has two USB ports. One of them is a regular female A connector. This port acts as an EHCI host. This means that any kind of device can be connected here to make this device be controlled by the board. The other port has a female mini-A connector (not very common). There, the board is supplied and can work as a host or as a slave. So, why do not I use it? Because, if a mini-A plug (this plug jumps a pair of pins, conguring this port as a host) is connected in this port, it should work as a host. However, when I tested it, there was no way to make it function as host. I do not know why. But it is expected to start quickly, so I recommend you not to bother about it because it can be caused by a designing eect, for example. I stopped thinking about it because it was pretty frustrating, as detailed in the picture 3.15. Despite the fact that the port detected the hub and the board was being powered, I could not make the Ethernet port work in Linux. So, the remaining option is connecting the hub to the EHCI port, which works properly.

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Connections

Figura 3.15: My face when I was trying to make the hub work via USB OTG port

Ill play it rst and tell you what it is later Miles Davis

Booting up
Everything is connected, so prepare what remains.

4.1

SD Memory Card

This memory card will be used to store the whole system (kernel + le system). For this, no modications of the board are needed. Just place the memory card into the board and turn it on. The charger pump startup (that will be recongured later on) will do the rest. Start by downloading the system zipped image. Unzip the image with:
$ bunzip2 sd . dd . bz2

As a result of this, a 2GB le will appear, and this le will be stored in the memory card. Insert the memory card in the PC and check which device refers to it. Once the memory card has been connected, this can be seen by checking the last kernel messages:
$ dmesg | tail

For example, I have this:

So, the memory card refers the device /dev/sdb. Then copy the system image onto the memory card with:
$ dd if =./ sd . dd of =/ dev / sdb

And now place it in the board. 15

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Booting up

4.2

Minicom

Minicom is the program that will be used to have access to the board serial console. For this, licenses are necessary to have acess to the PC serial device, so you must probably be logged as root. As you did with the memory card, you can nd out what kind of device must be used if the computer does not have a serial port and de USB Serial adapter must be used. Connect the adapter to a USB port and enter
$ dmesg | tail

I have this:
[341959.597576] [341959.597576] [341959.597576] [341959.597576] [341959.597576] usb usb usb usb usb 1 -1: 1 -1: 1 -1: 1 -1: 1 -1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0 New USB device found , idVendor =067 b , idProduct =2303 New USB device strings : Mfr =1 , Product =2 , SerialNumber =0 Product : USB - Serial Controller Manufacturer : Prolific Technology Inc .

So, the serial port used for the communication would be /dev/ttyUSB0. Then, run Minicom:
% minicom

And press Ctrl-A Z to have access to the help menu. Press O to congure Minicom and select Congure serial port.
+ - - - - - - - - - - - - -[ Configuration ] - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ | Routes and files name | | File transfer protocols | | Serial port configuration | | Dialed modem and number | | Screen and keyboard | | Save configuration as dfl | | Save configuration as ... | | Quit | + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+

Press A to edit the device and make changes. Set the hardware ow control to none by pressing F and press E to scroll to another menu. Press E to select a baud rate of 115200 bps and Q to restore the remaining parameters. Press Intro to return to the previous menu. The result should be a conguration like the following one:
A B C D E Serial device : / dev / ttyUSB0 Lock file location : / var / lock Callin program : Callout program : Bps / Parity / Bits : 115200 8 N1

Booting up

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F - Hardware flow control : No G - Software flow control : No

Return by pressing Esc and selecting Quit . Press Ctrl -A m to restart the conection , now you can connect the board to the electric current . Several charger pump startup messages should be displayed .\\ If this is the first time the board is booted , stop it by pressing any key when the u - boot countdown is displayed and enter : \ begin { lstlisting }[ style = consola , numbers = none ] setenv bootcmd mmcinit ; fatload mmc 0:1 0 x80300000 uImage ; bootm 0 x80300000 setenv bootargs console = ttyS2 ,115200 n8 root =/ dev / mmcblk0p2 rootwait rootfstype = ext3 ro

WARNING, these orders change the bootloader conguration in order to make the board boot from the memory card. It is necessary to congure the board again if you want the board to boot from the NAND memory These orders congure the bootloader to boot from the image located in the memory card according with several parameters. The parameter console let us see the console output via serial port. Restart the board and, if everything is OK, you should be watching how the system boots after the u-boot countdown. Congrats! You have a whole ready-to-use system. By the way, the root password is beagle.