[How-to] BB-View on latest Debian

Thanks for your answer, maybe I have a clue :

For the moment, I compiled tslib directly on the beagleboard.. Maybe should I compile it on my PC desktop with the same cross compile chain that I used to compile the kernell..?

Edit: well I compiled it on my PC desktop with the cross tool chain :

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/home/ana/Téléchargements/BBB/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-4.8-2013.10_linux/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-

and copy all files in the "good" directories on the BBB . I mean all needed *.la and *.so in /usr/lib/ts and the all needed binaries like _s_calibrate in /usr/bin .. and I copy also tslib directory with source files (with all *.o thats also seems to be needed) .,

and now I have this error message:

ts_calibrate.o: file not recognized: File format not recognized

collect2: ld return 1 exit statutsn

It's really a pain to make this works ... Well I think I will stop with my Ubuntu file system and try the [How-to] of this post... I'm really confused because I don't understand what I'm doing wrong...

IMHO cross compiling is always a bad idea, it's notoriously hard to get it right.  I natively compile all my code.

Anyway, your problem is likely to be that you didn't tell ./configure that you're cross compiling so it created makefiles for compiling on the host instead.  ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE= are things that the kernel build system knows how to handle. Nothing that I can see in the tslib sources uses either of those environment vars.

./configure --help has this:

so if you really must cross compile, you'll have to work out exactly what to pass to configure using that option as a start. You may also need to set CC to your cross compiler.  Even then, it may not work as configure often tries to compile and run small pieces of code while testing for features. Getting those Arm-compiled tests to run on your x86 system isn't impossible, but it's an extra challenge. 

Hello selsinork,

Thanks for your answer ^^

well I tried a cross-compile of tslib  just because my natively compiled on the BBB wasn't working...

I understand what you mean by passing options to configure.. I'll try to do this..  (just to be clearer, I'm not trying to run on an x86, but just to compile on it and run it on the BBB)

Hello again,

Well I managed to cross compile tslib, but I've got exactly the same problem than with the native compile.

So I think that maybe the problems comes from my *dtb  file because I took the Angstrom ones (I didn't compiled them like I did with the kernell)...  (I've just discovered dtb files, so I'm a little bit disapointed with it.. )

Devicetree has been a painful experience for a lot of us, however since they're used to describe what hardware is present it's important to get them right.  On the BBB, depending on which kernel you're using, you'll also have the added challenge of device tree overlays (*.dtbo files).

While the idea behind overlays could be an interesting one, I've personally come to the conclusion that overlays are unnecessary and mostly just an added complexity. For the large majority of people who will struggle with normal device tree stuff, overlays just are not helpful at all, they're just another barrier.

Hi Louis,

First of all, thank you for this exhaustive manual on how to make the BB-view work with Debian! That's a great job and thanks to folks like you the youngsters can discover the whole new world of embedded Linux application.

There's one issue I've got - after patching the kernel, the board is not recognized by PC via USB by its IP address anymore. I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. After re-flashing the BBB back with original Debian image, everything turns normal, i.e. PC recognizes it and one can access the board by 192.168.2.7. I suppose the problem may be in the configuration used for the kernel assembly - ethernet via USB support is not enabled or something like that. Can you please verify this point or maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Thanks and Regards,

Mao

You're welcome Mao,

I can't say for sure, as I don't use the USB Ethernet, so I have not verified its operation. You may want to search for gadget or RNDIS services.

Did you modify any of the Kernel configuration? I did not.

Are you only replacing files in the /boot/uboot folder, or others too?

You might run 'systemctl | grep usb' to see if you get something like this:

debian@beaglebone:~$ systemctl | grep usb

sys-devi...et-usb0.device loaded active plugged       /sys/devices/ocp.3/47400000.usb/musb-hdrc.0.auto/gadget/net/usb0

sys-devi...-ttyGS0.device loaded active plugged       /sys/devices/ocp.3/47400000.usb/musb-hdrc.0.auto/gadget/tty/ttyGS0

ifup@usb0.service         loaded active exited        ifup for usb0

or 'dmesg | grep rndis'

debian@beaglebone:~$ dmesg | grep rndis

[    0.704540] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_host

[   13.007932]  gadget: adding 'rndis'/de531200 to config 'Multifunction with RNDIS'/bf8127e0

[   13.007962] rndis_register: configNr = 0

[   13.007971] rndis_set_param_medium: 0 0

[   13.008055]  gadget:   interface 0 = rndis/de531200

[   13.008064]  gadget:   interface 1 = rndis/de531200

Louis

Hi Louis,

Well, that's not such a big issue anyway, it was just a bit confusing not to see 192.168.7.2 connected via USB as usually.  I should say that ethernet via eth0 works perfectly.

I didn't modify anything and performed all actions exactly as in your first post. I've only replaced the zImage and edited the documents as described as well (except that my bb-view is four inch so I've used files for 4" and put 4 instead of 7 where it should be put).

systemctl | grep usb doesn't return anything. Here's the copy of my systemctl output

One can see that the only failed task is:

'systemd-...s-load.service loaded failed failed Load Kernel Modules'

'dmesg | grep rndis' output is

[	0.742586] usbcore: registered new interface driver rndis_host

Best Regards,

Mao

Hello everybody,

and thank you Louis for this good tutorial.

I have two problems with my BB-view:

1) When I try to fix the color swap, I don't find the name of the screen in /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Did you know an other way to find this name?

2)When I try to calibrate the touchscreen, the TSLIB calibration utility (ts_calibrate) freezes. The screen displays "touch crosshair to calibrate", but I cant interact with (and no Ctrl-C  available)

There is someone here who solved this problem?

To build my OS I use this tutorial:

http://eewiki.net/display/linuxonarm/BeagleBone+Black

with the debian FS.

Regards,

arthur

Arthur,

Which kernel version are you using ?

Did you apply the patch Louis posted ?

Is the touch-screen driver loaded and did you set TSLIB_TSDEVICE to the appropriate device ?

If kernel 3.8.x check that the BB-VIEW-LCD7-01 overlay has been loaded.

If kernel 3.13 then you'll need to patch the touch screen into the main devicetree file as 3.13 doesn't have the capemanager and so can't load overlays.

You can ssh into the BBB and kill the ts_calibrate task to get local control back.