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  • Author Author: fustini
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Paws on with the BeagleBone

fustini

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I recently started working the BeagleBoneBeagleBone, an Open Source Hardware Single Board Computer (SBC).  For those not familiar:

BeagleBone is a low-cost credit-card-sized Linux computer that connects with the Internet and runs software such as Android 4.0 and Ubuntu. With plenty of I/O and processing power for real-time analysis provided by the TI SitaraTm AM335x ARMRegistered CortexTm-A8 processor, BeagleBone can be complemented with cape plug-in boards which augment BeagleBone’s functionality.

source: BeagleBone Quick Start Guide

 

The BeagleBone 101 slideshow does a good job of introducing the BeagleBoard, the BeagleBone and BoneScript.  I've been impressed by how easy BoneScript makes it to control physical hardware with JavaScript.  I am going to walk through some basic BoneScript examples, but first I'll describe the experience of connecting the BeagleBone to my computer for the first time.

 

The Bone does come with a preloaded microSD card with Angstrom (the default Linux distro for the Bone).  However, I wanted to make sure I had the latest software, so I downloaded the latest Angstrom image and flashed it onto the microSD card.  The BeagleBone Quick Start Guide has more info on how to do that.

 

Next, I connected the BeagleBone to the USB port on my laptop (running Ubuntu Linux 12.04).  This provides power to the Bone which then boots up off the microSD card.  The BeagleBone initially shows up as a USB mass storage device:

image

The contents include drivers for Windows users to continue with the next step.  Luckily, no additional drivers are needed for Linux:

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Upon ejecting the BeagleBone USB mass storage device, the BeagleBone will then appear as Ethernet-over-USB interface:

afustini@lappy486:~$ ifconfig eth1

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr d4:94:a1:92:59:57 

          inet addr:192.168.7.1  Bcast:192.168.7.3  Mask:255.255.255.252

          inet6 addr: fe80::d694:a1ff:fe92:5957/64 Scope:Link

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:233 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:252 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

          RX bytes:35937 (35.9 KB)  TX bytes:66085 (66.0 KB)

The kernel messages on my laptop:

Feb  8 00:52:15 lappy486 kernel: [211558.726102] cdc_ether 2-1.2.2:1.0: eth1: register 'cdc_ether' at usb-0000:00:1d.0-1.2.2, CDC Ethernet Device, d4:94:a1:92:59:57

Feb  8 00:52:15 lappy486 kernel: [211558.760561] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready

Feb  8 00:52:15 lappy486 kernel: [211558.760784] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready

Feb  8 00:52:16 lappy486 kernel: [211558.786409] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth1: link becomes ready

Feb  8 00:52:16 lappy486 kernel: [211558.787311] martian source 192.168.7.1 from 192.168.7.2, on dev eth1

Feb  8 00:52:18 lappy486 kernel: [211560.786518] martian source 255.255.255.255 from 192.168.7.2, on dev eth1

Feb  8 00:52:18 lappy486 kernel: [211560.792507] martian source 255.255.255.255 from 192.168.7.2, on dev eth1

This allowed me to then ssh into the BeagleBone:

afustini@lappy486:~$ ssh root@192.168.7.2

root@192.168.7.2's password:

root@beaglebone:~# uname -a

Linux beaglebone 3.2.34 #1 Wed Nov 21 14:17:11 CET 2012 armv7l GNU/Linux

root@beaglebone:~# cat /etc/issue

.---O---.                                          

|       |                  .-.           o o       

|   |   |-----.-----.-----.| |   .----..-----.-----.

|       |     | __  |  ---'| '--.|  .-'|     |     |

|   |   |  |  |     |---  ||  --'|  |  |  '  | | | |

'---'---'--'--'--.  |-----''----''--'  '-----'-'-'-'

                -'  |

                '---'

 

The Angstrom Distribution \n \l

 

Angstrom v2012.05 - Kernel \r

 

root@beaglebone:~# ls

Desktop

 

Here's a screenshot:

image

The BeagleBone also presents it's self as a USB serial device, too.  A terminal emulator (I use gtkterm on Linux) can then connect to the BeagleBone's console.

 

In my next post, I'll show the slick built-in web-based IDE, Cloud9, and how Javascript can be used to control circuits connected to the BeagleBone using the BoneScript library.

 

Cheers,

Drew

  • in reply to fustini

    According to Jason's comment, the Ethernet over USB issue is solved by installing a Ubuntu driver.  Or maybe the driver is already there, but I have to switch something on.  I remember having to do some config-fu to get Ubuntu's X Windows to accept connections over TCP/IP.

     

    For now, I need to attach both USB and Ethernet cables -- no big deal.  I just think the idea of running everything over a single cable is pretty neat, and I'm curious as to how well the X protocol works over USB compared to real Ethernet.  One of these days my curiosity will get high enough to check it out.

  • in reply to johnbeetem

    Yeah, I agree with you.  Sometimes I'm tempted to write content as a discussion post rather than blog post.  But blog post really is the appropriate place for this type of content.  Unfortunately, the way we have our widgets configured, and the way the framework we use works in general, makes discussions have higher visibility than blog posts. 

     

    On the upside, we've begun the process of upgrading our codebase to the latest major version of the framework.  I believe it handles activity streams and notifications better.  We'll hopefully be rolling out this significant upgrade sometime in the summer.

     

    Sorry to hear Ethernet over USB didn't work for.  I did grab the latest Angstrom image so that may have been the the different (or the difference in my computer OS).

  • in reply to DAB

    Hi DAB, sorry for the late response.  Thanks for John and Jason for chiming in.  I was quite impressed by the range options to run on the Bone.  From the quick start guide (http://beagleboard.org/static/beaglebone/latest/README.htm):

    Texas Instruments releases: Android, Linux, StarterWare (no OS)

    Linux: Angstrom Distributionm Ubuntu, Debian, Arch Linux, Gentoo, Sabayon, Buildroot, Erlang, Fedora

    Other: QNX, FreeBSD

     

    I don't have a particular end goal right now, but there are several things I like about the Bone over my other SBC, the Pi:

     

    • Open Source Hardware
    • better CPU (Cortex A8 / ARM v7) should make it easier to do computer vision (OpenCV) and SDR (software defined radio)
    • lots more I/O that makes it possible to have parallel color LCD touchscreen connected.  Several LCD "capes" are available.  I really wish the Pi had an option like this (composite video quality is not good enough & small HDMI displays are too expensive)
  • in reply to johnbeetem

    You can also start development without an operating system. See http://beagleboard.org/project for a lot of starting points.

     

    With BeagleBoard or BeagleBoard-xM, you'd probably start with u-boot or puppybits if you wanted to work without Linux or an RTOS.

     

    With BeagleBone or the next-gen BeagleBone, you'd probably start with StarterWare.

     

    The support for the virtual Ethernet over USB is in the distro (you have to have the distro load the g_ether driver). On the shipping Angstrom for BeagleBone, you need to "Eject" the drive to tell the distro to unload the g_mass_storage driver and to load the g_ether driver. Next Angstrom release should make it simpler with g_multi that does the mass storage and ether at the same time. On Ubuntu, you can lookup the right way to do a 'modprobe g_ether' from the serial port to start the driver (and later put it in your start-up files).

  • Hi Drew,

     

    Nice 'blog post.  I'm glad I found it... purely by accident, unfortunately.  As I've suggested elsewhere, it would be nice if new 'blog posts showed up in the main Discussions lists, which is what I always check.

     

    I didn't know the BBone could do virtual Ethernet over USB.  Neat!  I tried it immediately on my BBone and it didn't work, but then I'm running the Ångström that came with it: v2012.01-core kernel 3.2.5+.  Or maybe it's my Ubuntu 11.10.  I detest installing operating systems I didn't write.

     

    OTOH, I didn't have too much trouble getting X Windows to run over real Ethernet with the client on BBone and the server on Ubuntu.