Have a question about the Next-Gen BeagleBone? Ask it here!

For anyone else with one of these, see

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/beagleboard/beaglebone-black/G_QjWvBNXvc

you'll probably want to go to http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=Updating_The_Software and get the latest software image (2013.05.3 as of now) before trying to do anything with opkg

you'll probably want to go to http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=Updating_The_Software and get the latest software image (2013.05.3 as of now) before trying to do anything with opkg

Something must have been wrong with the build.  Looks like they pulled it.  I can see it in the change history so you're not a liar

You might want to check out http://www.adafruit.com. They have a proto cape for the BeagleBone at US$8.99. The connector headers need to

be soldered in (they are included). I'm not sure about the quality (double sided FR4)  but adafruit tends to have good products. It is also sold by

MCM electronics http://www.mcmelectronics.com.

John Beetem wrote:

 

My preference is to have a BeagleBone group and not discriminate on the basis of soldermask color.  This is somewhat selfish on my part, since I already have a BBone White and I'm not planning to pick up a BBone Black any time soon.

 

I think the differences between Black and White aren't that great -- it's almost the same processor, and I would hope that the expansion connectors are compatible so you can use the same capes.  So most topics about BBone Black would also apply to White, except for HDMI of course.

Although everything you say about "more similarities than differences" is true, that's exactly the same reasoning that the Beagleboard devs give for not separating out the BeagleBones from the BeagleBoards.  I guess it's a matter of perception.  They see everything they do as a unit under Angstrom, and don't want to see any partitioning,  Unfortunately we've seen and discussed the confusion that their mixing of the boards causes, even when they don't see it.  For total newbies the head scratching is likely to be even worse.

Although like yourself I have a white BeagleBone, I support selsinork's suggestion for an Element 14 group to be named "BeagleBone Black" because that's the board that's going to sell in very large volumes and require a large amount of beginner-level community support, just like the Pi does.  The white BB will not, simply because it's not in the same price niche.

A BBB-specific group would support the rapidly expanding new community of BBB users better it seems to me, and adding white BB to the mix will probably reduce clarity of discussions for these new users.  It's no hardship for BB old timers to add "This also applies to white BB" in appropriate places, rather than as a default.  It's we who are going to be doing the BBB support as new BBB purchasers arrive, so whatever makes that easier gets my vote.

Anyway, it's all academic, since it's clear from Drew's response that they're not going to give BBB group support on a par with Pi.  As a result we'll never know how popular BBB is becoming since there will be no BBB group membership information, and how many BBB users get eaten by lions as they try to navigate the knode jungle will never be known.

Morgaine.

Drew Fustini (admin) wrote: [my highlighting]

 

In the meantime, this discussion area ("Home > the knode > Development Platforms and Kits > element14 Development Kits > BeagleBone Black > Discussions") is the preferred location for BBB discussions.

There is no such navigation available in the knode, so saying that it's the preferred location can only be a statement of hope currently, not an actuality in the meantime.  Unless people are given a direct link to one of the BBB discussions or stumble across one among the random assortment of recent posts highlighted on the front page, they'll never find it.

Of course, we know it's not hard to find with a little perseverence (one of your RHS advertisements links to it), but new users can't divine which the "preferred location" actually is, and won't read your statement of hope until they've already found the spot.  Chicken and egg there.  Some will find nothing and just head elsewhere.

It's puzzling to see this choice being made, as it's likely to be bad for your user numbers and for the quality of support that new arrivals obtain from the site.  Fixing the knode's navigation faults will help, but only partially.  BBB support will still be inferior to that which Pi enjoys.  Is there a gain?  I don't see one.

As a stopgap, I recommend that you add to your front page (LHS column) a link called BeagleBone Black under "Featured Groups / Applications and Others", which already contains a mixture of real groups and community links.  That'll provide a direct link to your preferred location straight away and is easy + fast to do, in advance of fixing the knode's navigation which will require much more work from your devs.

It looks like there's been some site reorganization to improve the knode tree.  BeagleBone Black is now at

the knode > Single-Board Computers > BeagleBone Black

which seems a lot clearer than before.  I assume that this is the new "preferred location".

The transition probably doesn't break any thread bookmarks because messaging seems to be orthogonal to site navigation, but browser state is sensitive to it, so if you have a tab open on a thread in the old

the knode > Development Platforms and Kits > element14 Development Kits > BeagleBone Black > Discussions

then it will now have lost its parent if you try to go back, but good riddance to that.

Unfortunately there's still no downward navigation to reach "Discussions" within BeagleBone Black, so the only way of getting there is to click on an existing BBB thread and then go upwards to "Discussions" in its breadcrumbs.

While not as useful as having a BBB group would be, things are improving slightly I think.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

Unfortunately there's still no downward navigation to reach "Discussions" within BeagleBone Black, so the only way of getting there is to click on an existing BBB thread and then go upwards to "Discussions" in its breadcrumbs.

I really don't get why 'Discussions' is so well hidden, and both BBB and SL have the other annoying problem of if you ever find them and click on a 'learn more' button or link you're re-directed off to a document under the knode > Development Platforms and Kits > Dev Kits Learning Center > Documents - so in a completely different area, no clue you're missing out on other information.

Unless you're paying close attention you probably miss that you've been teleported elsewhere too

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

Unfortunately there's still no downward navigation to

I think you're still right in the comment that there's just no useful navigation in the knode.. and all it would take is the addition of the tabs (All Content, Discussions, Documents, Blog, Videos) in an area specific manner at all levels, rather than them only appearing at certain points - for the knode they only seem to appear after you're already on the page they would have been useful in getting to in the first place!

selsinork wrote:

 

I really don't get why 'Discussions' is so well hidden

I do:  "webbies".

I'll say no more, or they won't buy me a nice glass of wine when I finally see them some day.

IDEA:

Element 14's "My Lists" in the "black bar" across the top of all pages has "Parts List" and "My Bookmarks" as its only two lists.  How about adding a third list, "My Communities"?  Since everything under knode > design > Single Board Computers appears to be a "Community" in the sense that it has an action titled "Follow this community", it would turn this new list into a sort of "group selector" without daring to use the forbidden word "group".  And it would make the black bar more useful too.

We can already select a community to visit through My Account > Communities, but that adds two levels of page load indirection and it still doesn't get you to the Discussions page for the desired community.  So, I suggest that this new "My Communities" list be populated with direct links to the Discussions pages of the communities you are following,

And all will be sweetness and light.  Or at least marginally better.

Morgaine.

I share your feelings with the two boards.  I pulled my Pi out and put the BeagleBone Black in it's place.  They both didn't like my monitor setup (An old retired Sony VGA with a HDMI to VGA adapter), but the rework of the config.txt did fixed this problem in the Pi.  I have about 30+ hours of searching into the BCubed, and still can't fix the problem. The docs say you can rework the UBoot uEnv.txt file and this will take care of the issue, but any change I make has no effect.  At one place I got a feeling I was suppose to recompile the UBoot image, but after reading about 10 pages in the manual, I couldn't find a clue on how to do that. 

My feelings on the two boards. Pi, like the Arduino, has a great backing on the software side, but the hardware side is really lacking.  I read at one of the sites if I wanted the manual on the MCU used in the Pi, I had to commit to an order of 1 million chips a year.  The hardware on the BCubed is great, and well documented.  The power is one of the big differences.  The Pi has to have 5 volt supply that will damage the board if it is off by .3 volts, where with the BCubed it 5 to 9 volts is good, because BCubed has some power management on the card.

I have tried all the flavors of linux except Fedora (because I couldn't uncompress it), and all of them have that same UBoot method that doesn't work.  Another really bizzare problem is if the monitor doesn't return EDID information then UBoot gives you one resolution to choose from; instead of the 11 the hardware supports.  That was the results on Debian, Ebuntu (Rarring or Precise), and Angstrom.

Mike, I had similar problems getting my BBB to work with a VGA monitor. I was using a HDMA to VGA adaptor sold by Farnell for use with the R-Pi and the problem was that it needed more current than the BBB supplies (more than the HDMI spec) so I rigged up a way of feeding the adaptor from a separate 5V PSU and now it works great.

Mike, I had similar problems getting my BBB to work with a VGA monitor. I was using a HDMA to VGA adaptor sold by Farnell for use with the R-Pi and the problem was that it needed more current than the BBB supplies (more than the HDMI spec) so I rigged up a way of feeding the adaptor from a separate 5V PSU and now it works great.

My HDMI adapter has a wall wart (AC power supply), but I did have the same problem with the Pi.  I did the same thing you did  for the 16 USB stick that I had on the Pi (the processor sure is a power hog).