How to get started with a BeagleBoard

Hardware

Shopping list

Apart from the BeagleBoard itself¹, you will need:

• 5 V DC regulated power supply of at least 2 amps
  • Look for more than 2 amps if you use a USB hub that doesn’t have its own power supply;
  • For the BeagleBoard-xM, a 3 amp or greater supply is recommended if you are going to use the integrated hub to full capacity;
• SD card (microSD for BeagleBoard-xM)
  • Any capacity card will do, as you’re only going to put less than 10 megabytes on it;
  • You may need a USB card reader to allow you to put the ROM image onto the card with another computer, but the card itself will plug straight into the card slot on the BeagleBoard;
  • If you have a computer with an internal SD card reader then there’s no need to buy an additional USB card reader;
• Monitor with a digital input
  • Digital input means that DVI-D, DVI-I or HDMI will work, DVI-A will not;
  • Depending on your monitor, you may need a cable and/or adaptor to go from the BeagleBoard’s HDMI connector to your monitor;
• USB hub
  • Preferably powered and preferably more than 4 ports;
  • For the BeagleBoard-xM you generally won’t need a seperate hub, unless you have lots of USB devices;
• USB keyboard and mouse with three buttons
  • Often a scroll mouse will have the third button as a press of the scroll wheel;
• USB storage
  • This will act as your main harddisc, so you want a very minimum of 512 MiB, preferably more;
• Ethernet over USB adapter
  • If you want to network a ‘classic’ BeagleBoard, (Internet, ShareFS, NFS, NAS, etc.), this is essential;
  • The BeagleBoard-xM has an on-board network port so there is no need for an adapter if one ethernet port is enough;

Further details/explanation

• The BeagleBoard is shipped without any power supply. It requires a regulated 5 volts DC input, and has a barrel connector of the most common size. The BeagleBoard itself will consume something like 1 amp, but may need more in some circumstances, most notably at start-up. So you really don’t want to give it less than a 2 amp supply. Bear in mind that these figures don’t take into account the power drain of any attached USB devices. With a ‘classic’ BeagleBoard it’s best to use a hub that has its own mains power supply, so a 2 amp supply for the board will be fine. But with the BeagleBoard-xM a 3 amp supply is recommended to ensure that there is enough power available for the integrated USB hub.

• Realistically, you will probably want your BeagleBoard on a network. For ‘classic’ BeagleBoards this means you’ll have 4 USB devices connected to the hub (keyboard, mouse, storage device, Ethernet over USB adapter), which is why a hub with more than 4 ports is recommended (so there are some spare).

• The monitor with digital input is a must. The BeagleBoard simply doesn’t have any analogue video output apart from S-video, which is only of limited resolution, and isn’t fully supported by RISC OS yet. The digital video output is essentially unencrypted HDMI, which is electrically compatible with DVI-D. It must be admitted that DVI is pretty confusing; if you’re not sure about it, there are plenty of places to look on the Internet. Wikipedia’s entry is a good start. DVI-D is digital (and suitable); DVI-A is analogue (therefore not suitable); DVI-I supports both digital and analogue feeds, and is therefore suitable. Make sure you have a cable and adaptor system that goes from BeagleBoard’s HDMI socket to the monitor. Don’t get caught when you buy your new monitor, because it may not have have a socket and a free cable; instead it may have a captive cable terminated in a DVI-I plug. Thus you may need an HDMI to DVI adaptor. Most of these adaptors are HDMI to DVI-D. A DVI-I plug won’t fit into a DVI-D socket! Fortunately there are a few HDMI to DVI-I adaptors available, but, if you need one, look carefully to see exactly what you’re buying.

• As for the storage: you need an SD card and a USB memory stick or HDD (or additional SD card and USB card reader). They serve in two entirely different ways. The SD card only holds a few files to initialise the board and the RISC OS ROM image (which is only a few megabytes). For the ‘classic’ BeagleBoard MMC cards also work. SDHC cards will work too, though at present the extra capacity will be wasted. The USB storage device, on the other hand, is the RISC OS “disc”, which usually contains a minimum of several hundred megabytes and growing with all your files. You won’t get away with less than 512 megabytes. The bigger the better; you can’t have too much hard drive capacity. It’s either a physically spinning hard disc drive or a generic USB flash drive we’re talking about here, not Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick (MS) devices.

Setup

General

You should at all times be careful not to damage the BeagleBoard by static electricity on your body. Keep yourself earthed frequently, by touching some earthed metal such as a central heating radiator or a metal-cased computer. When you approach the BeagleBoard, you should do so from the edge, and touch one of the metal connector shells first.

After you’ve followed the procedure linked to below, connect everything up, and you should be ready to go!

The SD card plugs straight in to the BeagleBoard; the monitor comes from the HDMI connector; the USB hub plugs into the BeagleBoard’s larger USB socket (not the smaller OTG socket, as there are some remaining issues with MUSBDriver and some hubs); the keyboard, mouse, USB storage and Ethernet over USB adapter² (if you have it) plug into the USB hub. The BeagleBoard and the USB hub need their power supplies plugged in.

In particular, the BeagleBoard documentation warns that you must not plug in a DVI monitor while the BeagleBoard is powered.

It’s probably also good advice to take reasonable care when plugging/unplugging, and do so as infrequently as possible. This is to reduce strain on the board joints and is especially the case with the larger 5V DC, HDMI and S-Video sockets.

Turn it all on!

After between 5 and 10s, RISC OS’s startup text should appear on the monitor, shortly followed by the machine booting into the desktop. If something’s gone wrong then you may be left at the supervisor prompt – see the troubleshooting guide for more information on what to do if the machine doesn’t boot correctly, or if you run into any other problems during use.

Procedure

You’ll need the use of another computer for some of the following steps. The Generic OMAP port setup page provides step-by-step details of the procedure required.

Other things to do once you’re up and running

• ARMv7-safe ‘unzip’
  • Download from Jeffrey Lee’s website (under ‘Utility programs’)
  • Set the file type to Absolute (&FF8) and set a Wimpslot of at least 700k in order to run³.
  • Also put it into <Boot$Path>Library so you don’t need a copy in the CSD.
• SparkFS (read only copy)
  • A read only self extracting version is provided, which can later be upgraded to read/write for a small fee.
• EtherUSB
  • Configuring Networking using the configure plugin
  • Note, if you’re using an external offboard USB interface then once you’ve saved the network settings you’ll need to make sure the network adaptor is always connected at boot due to an unfortunate side-effect of the way both EtherUSB and the network configuration currently work
• Alignment exceptions
  • The Software compatibility list states where software works if alignment exceptions are turned off.
  • AlignEx facilitates easy toggling of the settings, for testing purposes.
  • There is also a short BASIC program listed under the alignment exceptions documentation. Note the small modification listed if you want to turn them back on again.
• MDFs
  • Some standard modes are listed under MDF entries
• Build a case for it
  • This is desirable, so that you don’t damage it by zapping it with static electricity on your body.
  • A suggested case design, requiring moderate drilling and filing skills, together with a parts list is given here and a slightly earlier version, with (unused) room inside for the power supply can be seen here.
• Consider fitting a cell for the real time clock
  • For a ‘classic’ BeagleBoard this involves desoldering surface mount resistor R66 and fitting BT1;
  • For a BeagleBoard-xM this involves desoldering surface mount resistor R65 and fitting BT1;
  • In either case, the Beagleboard system reference manual should be consulted for battery part numbers.

¹ Beware of being incorrectly charged additional VAT on shipping (applies to Digikey and possibly other vendors).

² On the xM, additional Ethernet over USB adapters should be plugged directly into the on-board hub, rather than via a powered hub (if you’re using one).