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[AirCare] InTheAir - Week 2: Preparing the Beaglebone Black

fvan

Previous posts for this project:

 

 

Introduction

 

Last week, I received my Beaglebone Black and my first order from the budget containing accessoires for the BBB. I've used the BBB before, in the Beaglebone Black Radio Challenge. Since then, Debian has become available which should simplify things on the software side (as opposed to using Angstrom).

imageimageimage

 

The parts used in this post are the following:

 

Let's get started!

 

Preparing the SD card

 

First thing I did was to prepare the SD card.

 

To have more space available, I decided to run Debian from the 8Gb SD card instead of burning it to the built-in storage of 4Gb.

On BeagleBoard.org - latest-images , there are two different Debian images. One for running from the SD card and one to flash the built-in memory. I picked the first one.

image

 

I downloaded the image and unpacked it. Next, I inserted the SD card in my laptop and flashed it with the Debian image.

 

To avoid accidentally erasing the wrong disk, I first listed them:

 

Fredericks-MacBook-Air:Downloads fvan1$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *251.0 GB   disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:          Apple_CoreStorage                         250.1 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD           *249.8 GB   disk1
                                 Logical Volume on disk0s2
                                 5642627E-CEC4-458D-AB8D-376EF3FB568C
                                 Unencrypted
/dev/disk2
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     Apple_partition_scheme                        *137.0 MB   disk2
   1:        Apple_partition_map                         32.3 KB    disk2s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS VirtualBox              137.0 MB   disk2s2
/dev/disk3
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *7.9 GB     disk3
   1:                 DOS_FAT_32                         7.9 GB     disk3s1

 

I then unmounted the SD card:

 

Fredericks-MacBook-Air:Downloads fvan1$ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk3
Unmount of all volumes on disk3 was successful

 

And finally, I wrote the image to the card using "dd":

 

Fredericks-MacBook-Air:Downloads fvan1$ sudo dd if=bone-debian-7.5-2014-05-14-2gb.img of=/dev/disk3 bs=1m


WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.


To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.


Password:
1700+0 records in
1700+0 records out
1782579200 bytes transferred in 1069.609160 secs (1666571 bytes/sec)

 

After that, I inserted the SD card in the Beaglebone black and booted it. I connected a USB cable for networking, in order to be able to SSH into the BBB.

The default credentials are "debian"/"temppwd".

 

Fredericks-MacBook-Air:Downloads fvan1$ ssh debian@192.168.7.2
Debian GNU/Linux 7


BeagleBoard.org BeagleBone Debian Image 2014-05-14


Support/FAQ: http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack_Debian
debian@192.168.7.2's password:
debian@beaglebone:~$

 

The BBB booted correctly and was accessible via SSH. I verified the space available and noticed the 8Gb were not fully used.

That's because the image is meant for a 2Gb built-in memory or SD card.

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs          1.6G  1.5G  1.2M 100% /
udev             10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs           100M  640K   99M   1% /run
/dev/mmcblk0p2  1.6G  1.5G  1.2M 100% /
tmpfs           249M     0  249M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           249M     0  249M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs           100M     0  100M   0% /run/user
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
/dev/mmcblk0p1   96M   70M   27M  73% /boot/uboot
/dev/mmcblk1p2  3.4G  1.4G  1.9G  42% /media/rootfs
/dev/mmcblk1p1   96M   72M   25M  75% /media/boot

 

 

Expanding the filesystem

 

In order to fully utilise the SD card, the filesystem needs to be expanded. Instructions are provided online: Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack Debian - eLinux.org

 

debian@beaglebone:/opt/scripts/tools$ sudo ./grow_partition.sh
Media: [/dev/mmcblk0]


Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 239904 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track
Old situation:
Units = mebibytes of 1048576 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0


   Device Boot Start   End    MiB    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/mmcblk0p1   *     1     96     96      98304    e  W95 FAT16 (LBA)
  start: (c,h,s) expected (32,0,1) found (0,32,33)
  end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,3,16) found (12,93,17)
/dev/mmcblk0p2        97   1699   1603    1641472   83  Linux
  start: (c,h,s) expected (1023,3,16) found (12,93,18)
  end: (c,h,s) expected (1023,3,16) found (216,183,31)
/dev/mmcblk0p3         0      -      0          0    0  Empty
/dev/mmcblk0p4         0      -      0          0    0  Empty
New situation:
Units = mebibytes of 1048576 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0


   Device Boot Start   End    MiB    #blocks   Id  System
/dev/mmcblk0p1   *     1     96     96      98304    e  W95 FAT16 (LBA)
/dev/mmcblk0p2        97   7496   7400    7577600   83  Linux
/dev/mmcblk0p3         0      -      0          0    0  Empty
/dev/mmcblk0p4         0      -      0          0    0  Empty
Successfully wrote the new partition table


Re-reading the partition table ...
BLKRRPART: Device or resource busy
The command to re-read the partition table failed.
Run partprobe(8), kpartx(8) or reboot your system now,
before using mkfs
If you created or changed a DOS partition, /dev/foo7, say, then use dd(1)
to zero the first 512 bytes:  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/foo7 bs=512 count=1
(See fdisk(8).)

 

The last step generated an error, stating the device or resource is busy. I tried rebooting, but that didn't help.

I then came across this discussion: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/beagleboard/lJ8RWGzXebc/X_jMKTICRSwJ

 

As mentioned in one of the comments, I executed the following command:

 

debian@beaglebone:/opt/scripts/tools$ sudo resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p2
resize2fs 1.42.5 (29-Jul-2012)
Filesystem at /dev/mmcblk0p2 is mounted on /; on-line resizing required
old_desc_blocks = 1, new_desc_blocks = 1
The filesystem on /dev/mmcblk0p2 is now 1894400 blocks long.

 

Et voila, more space!

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs          7.1G  1.5G  5.4G  22% /
udev             10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs           100M  644K   99M   1% /run
/dev/mmcblk0p2  7.1G  1.5G  5.4G  22% /
tmpfs           249M     0  249M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           249M     0  249M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs           5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs           100M     0  100M   0% /run/user
/dev/mmcblk0p1   96M   70M   27M  73% /boot/uboot
/dev/mmcblk1p2  3.4G  1.4G  1.9G  42% /media/rootfs
/dev/mmcblk1p1   96M   72M   25M  75% /media/boot

 

 

Setting up Wifi

 

Wifi was really easy to set up.

 

I connected the USB dongle, and SSH'ed into the BBB. Listing the current network interfaces, wifi is not one of them:

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ ip -4 a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
4: usb0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
    inet 192.168.7.2/30 brd 192.168.7.3 scope global usb0

 

Wifi can be enabled by editing the interfaces file, just like on the Raspberry Pi.

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

...
# WiFi Example
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
    wpa-ssid "ssid"
    wpa-psk  "password"
...

 

After editing the file and saving the changes, I restarted the networking.

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
[....] Restarting networking (via systemctl): networking.service


. ok

 

That's it, that's all there is to it. Wifi is now running on the BBB.

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ ip -4 a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP qlen 1000
    inet 192.168.0.135/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global wlan0
4: usb0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
    inet 192.168.7.2/30 brd 192.168.7.3 scope global usb0

 

 

Configuring for BB View

 

Finally, I decided to use a touch screen on the BBB for my project.

 

The steps are rather straightforward and properly documented in the BB View user manual. Here's a summary of what I did.

 

First, I dowloaded the patch files available on element14: element14: BB View LCD Cape Software Download Centre[1]

After downloading, I extracted the files and copied them over to the BBB via SCP.

 

Fredericks-MacBook-Air:BB VIEW Debian Image fvan1$ scp * debian@192.168.0.135:bbview/
Debian GNU/Linux 7


BeagleBoard.org BeagleBone Debian Image 2014-05-14


Support/FAQ: http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack_Debian
debian@192.168.0.135's password:
am335x-boneblack-lcd4.dtb                                                           100%   23KB  23.2KB/s   00:00
am335x-boneblack-lcd7.dtb                                                           100%   23KB  23.2KB/s   00:00
am335x-boneblack.dtb                                                                100%   23KB  23.2KB/s   00:00
kernel_modules.tar.gz                                                               100%   34MB   8.6MB/s   00:04
xorg.conf                                                                           100%  564     0.6KB/s   00:00
zImage                                                                              100% 4243KB   4.1MB/s   00:00

 

After that, it was just following instructions to put the patch files in the correct locations:

 

debian@beaglebone:~/bbview$ sudo cp -f zImage /boot/uboot
debian@beaglebone:~/bbview$ sudo cp -f *.dtb /boot/uboot/dtbs/
debian@beaglebone:~/bbview$ sudo tar -xvzf kernel_modules.tar.gz -C /
debian@beaglebone:~/bbview$ sudo cp -f xorg.conf /etc/X11/
debian@beaglebone:~/bbview$ sudo sync
debian@beaglebone:~/bbview$ cd /boot/uboot/dtbs
debian@beaglebone:/boot/uboot/dtbs$ sudo cp am335x-boneblack-lcd7.dtb am335x-boneblack.dtb
debian@beaglebone:/boot/uboot/dtbs$ sudo sync
debian@beaglebone:/boot/uboot/dtbs$ sudo reboot

 

Result

 

Tadaaaa, the Beaglebone Black is working with Wifi and LCD touch screen!

image