EBC Exercise 02 Out-of-the-Box, Bone 3.2 Kernel

Kernel 3.2
These instructions are for the 3.2 kernel. EBC Exercise 02 Out-of-the-Box, Bone has instructions for the 3.8 kernel.

The BeagleBone can do many neat things right out of the box using just the USB cable and SD card that come with it. Before hooking up anything, if you are running Linux or OSX on your host computer, open a terminal at run:

host$ ls /dev/tty* > /tmp/tty

This will record what devices are present on you host computer. Once you plug the bone in it will create a new device. Windows users don't have to do anything here.

Install the SD card (not the one that says Linux SDK on it) and attach the Bone to a host computer via the USB cable. The little USB connector goes to the Beagle in the connector on the bottom of the board near the Ethernet connector. Connect the large end of the USB cable to a host computer. The host can be either Linux, Mac, or Windows (though if you are doing development, consider running Linux on the host.) I give instructions for each.

The Beagle, powered via the USB, will boot up. You should initially see two LEDs blinking, near the Ethernet connector. The one labeled 0 blinks a heartbeat pattern. LED 1 blinks when the SD card is being accessed. After about 30 seconds LED 1 will stop blinking. The Bone is booted.

Here are some of the things it can do.

YouTube Introduction
Here's a nice overview of the BeagleBone. It shows how to work with it using a Windows host.

USB Drive
On your host you will notice a new folder appearing. On Linux and OSX it's call BEAGLE_BONE. On Windows it's Beagle Bone Getting Started. Open it up and look around. The README.html gives lots of information about getting going with the Bone. Look at it in detail after going though this page.

When you are doing exploring the files, eject the drive (don't select SAFELY REMOVE DRIVE). Once the drive is ejected, the network will start up over the USB.

Built in USB to serial adapter
The Beagle xM has a serial port connector on board, but the Bone doesn't. Instead you access the serial port through the USB connector. The trick is figuring out how to access it.

Linux, OSX
Run the following: host$ ls /dev/tty* > /tmp/tty2 host$ diff /tmp/tty* ttyUSB1 host$ screen /dev/ttyUSB1 115200  (Linux) host$ screen /dev/tty.usb*B 115200 (OSX)

The first line lists what devices are out there. The second compares that list to the list made earlier. What appears is the USB to serial device on the Bone. The last line starts a serial port program that attaches to that device. Notice the ttyUSB1 is the same string as returned by the diff command.

Windows
To find where the serial port appears in Windows, click on the start menu and search for Device Manager and run it.



Select Ports and look for USB Serial Port. In my case the port appears at COM6.



Start up a ECE497_Tips_and_Tricks program and connect. The baud rate is 115200.

Logging in
Hit RETURN and you'll see the following. Login as root and look around.

.---O---. |      |                  .-.           o o         |   |   |-.-.-.| |   ...-.-. |      |     | __  |  ---'| '--.|  .-'|     |     | |   |   |  |  |     |---  ||  --'|  |  |  '  | | | | '---'---'--'--'--.  |---'  '-'-'-'-'                 -'  |                 '---'   The Angstrom Distribution beaglebone ttyO0 Angstrom v2012.01-core - Kernel 3.2.5+ beaglebone login: root Last login: Fri Jul 13 01:28:06 UTC 2012 on ttyO0 root@beaglebone:~#