Beaglebone
Basic
Wiki
- http://elinux.org/BeagleBone
- ARM architecture from wikipedia.
- Downloading images and instruction from www.armhf.com
- Adafruit learning which includes flashing eMMC and other stuff.
- http://eewiki.net/display/linuxonarm/BeagleBone+Black covers a lot about BBB.
- http://hipstercircuits.com/category/beaglebone/
Ubuntu
- Image (~70MB) download http://www.armhf.com/index.php/download/ and how to write the image to microSD card , boot from microSD and then the internal eMMC under Ubuntu/Debian.
- The image contains a miniminal Ubuntu system. It only takes 276 MB when I use df -h command to check. So it does not come with a full desktop.
- Defautl username=ubuntu, password=ubuntu
- http://robotic-controls.com/learn/beaglebone/beaglebone-black-ubuntu
- If I try to install xubuntu-desktop, it requires 421MB data to download and 1.2GB space to install. So it is not feasible since the /dev/mmcblk0p2 partition has only 1.8GB space. Fortunately, the solution in here works well.
flashing eMMC
Hold the "User Boot" button down, and then plug in the power (USB or 5V adaptor). Keep holding down the button until you see the bank of 4 LED's light up for a few seconds. You can now release the button.
It will take anywhere from 30-45 minutes to flash the image onto the on-board chip. Once it's done, the bank of 4 LED's to the right of the Ethernet will all stay lit up at the same time. You can then power down your BeagleBone Black.
Remove the SD Card, and power up your BeagleBone Black.
microHDMI to VGA cable
http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=BeagleBone_Black_Accessories
Question: How to create EDIT? My NEC monitor supports only 1024 x 768.
Beagleboneblack HDMI page from circuitco.com.
My Observation
When I use the image BBB-eMMC-flasher-2013.06.20.img to put it on the microSD card with win32DiskImager, I see (from plugging SD in Ubuntu) the microSD card has 2 partitions
eMMC-Flasher -ext4 BEAGLE_BONE - vfat
where eMMC-Flasher contains an ubuntu data and BEAGLE_BONE contains only 4 files.
ID.txt - just one line MLO - 98K binary u-boot.img - 371K binary uEnv.txt - just one line
Flashing is done by pressing the 'Boot' button while connecting the power. It took 1 hour in my case when I flashed BBB-eMMC-flasher-2013.06.20.img.
However, once the microSD is flashed to eMMC, the 'eMMC-Flasher' partition will be gone and 'BEAGLE_BONE' partition is changed to include 3 new folders- App, Docs and Drivers AND some new files - START.htm, autorun.inf, README.md.
Android OS
http://icculus.org/~hendersa/android/
Configure Angstrom
http://www.gigamegablog.com/2012/01/29/beaglebone-linux-101-configuring-angstrom-linux/
Package download
opkg update opkg install XXXX opkg list | grep "gfortran"
However, at least for BBB case, I cannot find gfortran package so I cannot install R. See discussions below
The angstrom linux package browser is the place we can see if packages for BBB Cortex-A8. According to Wikipedia the Cortex-A8 has armv7a architecture.
On ubuntu, we can use ldconfig -v command to show the installed libraries and their versions. See here. If we like to manually add libraries to ubuntu/debian, we can check the tip here.
Ubuntu
Find out the IP address if we use internet sharing
Download fing deb package from overlooksoft website. Install it by double clicking the file in file manager. Issue the following command to find out the IP of beaglebone black (shared computer). The IP of my 2nd ethernet adapter (eth1) is 10.42.0.1.
sudo fing -n 10.42.0.1/24
VNC
opkg update opkg install x11vnc x11vnc -bg -o %HOME/.x11vnc.log.%VNCDISPLAY -auth /var/run/gdm/auth-for-gdm*/database -display :0 -forever
Start VNC server at bootup and shutdown
- https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2011-July/154611.html
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Vncserver
Use microSD as ext storage
It is possible. See the idea in here.
Build R on BBB
I am using Ubuntu 13.04 image since angstrom linux missing many required packages.
Since the space is limited, instead of using 'sudo apt-get build-dep r-base', I manually install the essential packages: build-essential, gfortran, libreadline6-dev, libx11-dev, libxt-dev and optionally openjrk-7-jre.
I am using R 3.0.1.
ubuntu@ubuntu-armhf:~$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mmcblk0p2 1.8G 276M 1.4G 17% / none 4.0K 0 4.0K 0% /sys/fs/cgroup devtmpfs 248M 4.0K 248M 1% /dev none 50M 220K 50M 1% /run none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none 248M 0 248M 0% /run/shm none 100M 0 100M 0% /run/user /dev/mmcblk0p1 1004K 472K 532K 48% /boot/uboot sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install build-essential sudo apt-get install gfortran sudo apt-get install libreadline6-dev sudo apt-get install libx11-dev sudo apt-get install libxt-dev sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre // optional, require 143MB space // The whole process (configure + make) takes at least 2 hours on BBB ./configure make // make > ~/Rmake.txt 2>&1 There is still warnings with library/datasets http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=695411 It seems this is false alarm. ubuntu@ubuntu-armhf:~/R-3.0.1$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mmcblk0p2 1.8G 1.1G 615M 64% / none 4.0K 0 4.0K 0% /sys/fs/cgroup devtmpfs 248M 4.0K 248M 1% /dev none 50M 224K 50M 1% /run none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none 248M 0 248M 0% /run/shm none 100M 0 100M 0% /run/user /dev/mmcblk0p1 1004K 472K 532K 48% /boot/uboot
The complete process of running ./configure and make are recorded in
- ./configure Beaglebone and x86_64 box
- make Beaglebone and x86_64 box
Performance test
GPIO Projects
Setting up an IO python library
http://learn.adafruit.com/setting-up-io-python-library-on-beaglebone-black
Adding a push button
http://learn.adafruit.com/connecting-a-push-button-to-beaglebone-black
Measure light
http://learn.adafruit.com/measuring-light-with-a-beaglebone-black
Fading RGB using PWM
http://learn.adafruit.com/fading-a-rgb-led-on-beaglebone-black/overview
Blinking an LED
http://learn.adafruit.com/blinking-an-led-with-beaglebone-black
Controlling a servo
http://learn.adafruit.com/controlling-a-servo-with-a-beaglebone-black
Measuring temperature
http://learn.adafruit.com/measuring-temperature-with-a-beaglebone-black