Setup

Connect the BBB to the PC through the USB. The BBB shows up as a new device. You can open START.htm and follow the instructions.

Under Linux you don’t need to install any driver, but it is useful to use the provided script to setup udev rules. The script need execution privileges. You need to copy the file /media/pezzino/boot/Drivers/Linux/FTDI/mkudevrule.sh under another directory and add x privilege.

pezzino@samarcanda:/media/pezzino/boot/Drivers/Linux/FTDI$ cp mkudevrule.sh ~/
pezzino@samarcanda:/media/pezzino/boot/Drivers/Linux/FTDI$ cd ~
pezzino@samarcanda:~$ chmod +x mkudevrule.sh 
pezzino@samarcanda:~$ sudo ./mkudevrule.sh 
[sudo] password for pezzino: 

BBB uses also a USB to virtual Ethernet in order to access the web server at http://192.168.7.2, you need to set up correctly your network, you can use ifconfig to get the correct MAC address.

pezzino@samarcanda:~$ ifconfig -a
eth2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr d0:5f:b8:a1:cd:f0  
          inet addr:192.168.7.1  Bcast:192.168.7.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::d25f:b8ff:fea1:cdf0/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:41 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:110 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:7492 (7.4 KB)  TX bytes:23168 (23.1 KB)

BBB capabilities

The Bonescript library runs in Node.JS. You can run it directly on the board using the ‘node’ interpreter or the Cloud9 IDE that invokes the ‘node’ interpreter. You can also run it using the bonescript.js script within your browser via remote procedure calls using Socket.io and served up by the web server running on your BeagleBoard.

That’s really impressive. Connect to Clou9 IDE server at http://192.168.7.2:3000

Serial port

Pin number 1 is marked with a dot on J1 connector.

 Board       Wire    Function
  Pin 1.....Black.....Ground

  Pin 4.....Green.....Receive

  Pin 5.....White....Transmit

[ 3235.749508] usb 2-1.3: new full-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci
[ 3235.842843] usb 2-1.3: New USB device found, idVendor=067b, idProduct=2303
[ 3235.842851] usb 2-1.3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 3235.842856] usb 2-1.3: Product: USB-Serial Controller
[ 3235.842860] usb 2-1.3: Manufacturer: Prolific Technology Inc.
[ 3236.493676] [UFW BLOCK] IN=wlan0 OUT= MAC= SRC=2a02:120b:2c38:d9d0:7939:af56:0cf4:fa0e DST=ff02:0000:0000:0000:0000:0
[ 3237.493662] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[ 3237.493703] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[ 3237.493735] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 3237.515320] usbcore: registered new interface driver pl2303
[ 3237.515349] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for pl2303
[ 3237.515384] pl2303 2-1.3:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[ 3237.518917] usb 2-1.3: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

Baud 115,200
Bits 8
Parity N
Stop Bits 1
Handshake None

The serial port will be mounted under /dev/ttyACM0

Minicom (Ctrl+A and then O to set up the port, Ctrl+A and Q to quit):

Debian GNU/Linux 7 beaglebone ttyGS0

default username:password is [debian:temppwd]

Support/FAQ: http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack_Debian

The IP Address for usb0 is: 192.168.7.2
beaglebone login: root
Password: 

Login incorrect
beaglebone login: root
Last login: Wed Apr 23 20:21:18 UTC 2014 on ttyO0
Linux beaglebone 3.8.13-bone47 #1 SMP Fri Apr 11 01:36:09 UTC 2014 armv7l

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
root@beaglebone:~# 

The password for root is blank.

Cross development

Under Eclipse Luna install:

Luna - http://download.eclipse.org/releases/luna
  Mobile and Device Development
    C/C++ GCC Cross Compiler Support
    Remote System Explorer End-User Runtime
    C/C++ Remote Launch (Requires RSE Remote System Explorer)

See RSE help page.

Install toolchain:

sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf
sudo apt-get install g++-arm-linux-gnueabihf

New -> C Project, choose cross GCC.
Cross compiler prefix: arm-linux-gnueabihf-

RSE, define new connection, ssh only, host name: 192.168.7.2, finish.

Run, Run configurations, C/C++ Remote Application, right click, new…
Connection -> BBBlack, change remote absolute path (NOTE: this is the complete path of the executable, not only the containing directory! e.g. /root/demo/BBBHelloC). The first time you need to add the exec permission (e.g. chmod +x BBBHelloC). You can also add commands that need to run before the application starts.

Debugging

The toolchain that get installed with my Ubuntu (14.10) doesn’t contain gdb. Most instructions found on the net suggest to install gdb-multiarch to talk to the remote gdb server, but it didn’t worked for me. I’ve tried to use arm-none-eabi-gdb, it starts the debugging process but eventually you get an error.

On the BBB you can check the version of the gdb server:

root@beaglebone:~/demo# gdbserver --version
GNU gdbserver (GDB) 7.4.1-debian
Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
gdbserver is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License.
This gdbserver was configured as "arm-linux-gnueabihf"

In the end I’ve downloaded the precompiled toolchain from linaro (the gnueabihf version), and manually installed their gdb.

Right click on project, Debug As, Debug configurations, under debugger tab change gdb to arm-linux-gnueabihf-gdb.

Network

/etc/network/interfaces:

iface usb0 inet static
    address 192.168.7.2
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    network 192.168.7.0
    gateway 192.168.7.1

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.1.100
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.1.0
        gateway 192.168.1.1

Conclusion

So, beaglebone black is a cheap device that let you play with many different technologies related to Linux embedded development.

• Node.js
• Cloud9 IDE
• Yocto
• Linux device tree
• PCB design (new cape)
• PRUs
• …