Getting started with the BeagleBone on OSX Lion #1
I recently got a BeagleBone and wanted to share some of my experiences with it as well as document some obstacles along the way. My first topic is the installation of the latest Angstrom version on the BeagleBone and connecting via Terminal.
So the first thing I wanted to do after unpacking, reading the README and hooking it up was to install the latest Angstrom Linux version for BeagleBone. You can find the latest images here. I chose Angstrom-Cloud9-IDE-eglibc-ipk-v2012.04-core-beaglebone-2012.04.09.img.xz. If you want to run a XServer on BeagleBone you might want to download the heavier GNOME image.
While the file was downloading I took the microSD card out of the BeagleBone and inserted it into the Cardreader of my Macbook (I have an microSD adapter). Then i used Terminal to find the mount point of the card:
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *3.9 GB disk1
1: Windows_FAT_32 BEAGLE_BONE 74.0 MB disk1s1
2: Linux 3.6 GB disk1s2
In my case it’s at »/dev/disk1«. The next step is to do a backup of the SD card so that you can go back to the original image later if something goes wrong. I did the backup via Terminal as well:
First unmount the disk.
Unmount of all volumes on disk1 was successful
The backup process. It might take a while.
cd bb_backup
dd if=/dev/diskX of=bb_backup.img
xxx records in
xxx records out
xxx bytes transferred in xxx secs (xxx bytes/sec)
Now we can copy the downloaded Angstrom image. Will take it’s time as well, you can lean back.
That’s it! We’re almost ready to connect. We just have to install the FTDI Drivers for BeagleBone to be able to connect via USB. I found instructions to get the drivers running with OSX Lion (there seem to have been some problems before). Since that blog post new drivers with version 2_2_17 have been released and after installing them it just worked, didn’t have to do more. You can download those drivers for Lion here.
Now insert SD card into BeagleBone, hook up the USB cable and power it up. After about 10 seconds you can try to connect via Terminal. Login is root and there is no password set in the default configuration.
.---O---.
| | .-. o o
| | |-----.-----.-----.| | .----..-----.-----.
| | | __ | ---'| '--.| .-'| | |
| | | | | |--- || --'| | | ' | | | |
'---'---'--'--'--. |-----''----''--' '-----'-'-'-'
-' |
'---'
The Angstrom Distribution beaglebone ttyO0
Angstrom v2012.04-core - Kernel 3.2.14
beaglebone login:
Let’s try out the Cloud9 IDE! For this to work we have to eject the »BEAGLE_BONE« volume in Finder. After a while the USB-to-Ethernet interface starts up. I didn’t get prompted on my machine but if you do, set up the adapter for DHCP. Now go to »http://192.168.7.2« in the browser. Voilà.
