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Frequently Asked Questions

General Board Questions

What are the Beagles?

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Support

Using the IRC Channel Live Chat and Mailing List (Forums)

  • Use site search and explore the forums to see if the support question has been previously asked and answered.
  • Visit the IRC Channel for interactive support from fellow community members. As this is an all-volunteer effort, it may be necessary to try at a few different times throughout the day and stay logged in to see any responses. If you have a large amount of text to share, use a tool such as Pastebin.
  • If search and utilizing the IRC Channel do not result in a solution to your support problem, post to the forums. Provide information on your project's goal/objective as well as all pertinent details about current results, but avoid communicating any extraneous information. For best results, follow these guidelines for asking questions when participating in the Beagle community.
  • A final option for obtaining support is contacting commercial operating system vendor. The Texas Instruments Design Network and OMAP/Sitara/DaVinci Support and Training Resources. The forums may also assist in answering requests for paid support.
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Software

Linux

  • Are Beagles Linux only?
    • Beagles run on a variety of operating systems including but not limited to Linux.
    • BeagleBoard.org gives links and pointers (including source) for data related to Beagle products. If a Beagle project, etc. with some instructional value has been completed with a propriety OS, links may be included to their site from BeagleBoard.org. However, it is the decision of that project owner whether or not to open their source.
  • Can software be downloaded directly from BeagleBoard.org?
  • After building a custom kernel from mainline, a particular function doesn't seem to work. How can the problem be solved?
    • Specific patches may be required to make the kernel aware of different types of boards/configure the chips properly. These patches may not be merged into mainline for various reasons and could be automatically applied when a kernel is built for Beagle with OpenEmbedded. Quilt can assist in applying these patches to a kernel.
  • Is feature X possible with my Beagle on Linux?
    • The Beagles are capable of anything normally possible on a regular Linux system.

Other Software Topics

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Accessories

  • What power peripherals are required/desirable?
    • There are several ways to power a Beagle. The option exists to feed the on-board regulators through either the 5V barrel connector input or USB input. When powered up over USB, the regulators are somewhat limited in what they can supply the system. Power over USB is sufficient as long as the software and system running perform some management to keep it under the USB current limit threshold. For simplicity and maximum capability, powering over the 5V barrel connector is typically recommended.
    • The power adapter is required to provide 5V over a 5.5mm outer diameter and 2.1mm inner diameter barrel connector (a barrel connector length of 9.5mm is more than sufficient). The recommended supply current is at least 1.2A (or 6W), but at least 2A (or 10W) is recommended if you are going to connect up anything over the USB. The actual power consumption will vary greatly with changes on the USB load.
    • How can a keyboard and mouse be connected?
    • Use a mini-A to standard-A USB adapter when attempting to do so via the OTG port. Mini-B adapters will not work without additional hardware modifications. Recommended peripherals can be found on product pages.
    • It is also necessary to build support for USB OTG host mode into your kernel.
    • The port can only supply 100mA, so a powered hub may be necessary for power-hungry keyboards and mice.
  • What are some sources for further peripheral exploration?
  • What is required to run software on BeagleBoard-xM Rev C?
    • The revision ID on the board and the control signal for powering the USB hub on the board changed between BeagleBoard-xM Rev B and BeagleBoard-xM Rev C. Older versions of x-loader/MLO, u-boot and the Linux kernel did not properly utilize the revision ID settings on the board, so BeagleBoard-xM Rev B didn't include settings different than BeagleBoard-xM Rev A due to this issue. On BeagleBoard-xM rev C, with the USB hub changes on the board, it became necessary to change the board revision ID, resulting in incompatibility with older software. See the forum posts on this topic for further details.
    • If the latest mainline x-loader and u-boot are utilized, including the variations shipped on the microSD card on the board (available at circuitco.com/support), the revision will be properly detected.
    • The mainline kernel does not yet include the patch required to utilize the proper polarity for the USB hub power enable. Explore this candidate patch for information on what to fix and potentially apply it. If an image of Angstrom is assembled using Narcissus, the result will be a working kernel using the sources in OpenEmbedded.
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USB-Related

  • Can the BeagleBoard or BeagleBoard-xM be powered over USB?
    • Unfortunately, no. First, the validation image shipped with the board is based on a 2.6.32 kernel with a bug in the USB interrupt management. This bug has been fixed on newer kernels, but those kernels have not yet been added to the BeagleBoard's validation image. A patched version of the 2.6.39 kernel is currently being implemented to support BeagleBoard validation and is expected to provide the solution.
    • Second, the default boot condition of the kernel is to power up peripheral interfaces like the EHCI-based USB host on the BeagleBoard-xM and DVI-D on both pre-xM and xM boards. The USB specification requires devices to power up under 100mA (~500mW) and the USB hub circuit on the BeagleBoard-xM may consume around 100mA itself. Modification is required to the kernel to avoid powering up this section of the board until sufficient current is confirmed by the software. In practice, most host machines will provide sufficient power, despite this violation of the specification. Consider power requirements before attempting to utilize USB to power the BeagleBoard or BeagleBoard-xM.
  • Can the Beagle OTG port work in host mode?
    • The jumper on the back of the board can be used to attach some solder to, or a cable that has the pins shorted. Read more about this in the System Reference Manual.
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Serial Port-Related

  • Why is there no output? Why is it not possible to type into the serial port?
  • Why are no boot messages visible on a custom kernel?
    • Passing the wrong bootargs to the kernel is a possible cause. Linux kernels >= 2.6.36 are using ttyOn instead ttySn for the serials on OMAP, so set console=ttyO2,115200n8 in U-boot.

Last updated by default on Mon Jul 22 2019 20:29:11 GMT-0000 (UTC).
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