BeagleBone Black Ubuntu 13.10 with desktop... another UBUNTU FAILURE!!

Recently I saw that Ubuntu 13.10 was still available. I downloaded ubuntu-saucy-13.10-armhf-3.8.13-bone30.img.xz  from http://www.armhf.com/index.php/boards/beaglebone-black/#precise  unzipped it and wrote the image to an 8GB microsd card using win32diskimager programme on my windows machine

The microsd booted and gave me the welcome and login. (ubuntu, ubuntu) which resulted in the Ubuntu command line prompt. I expanded the file system using the instructions at http://www.armhf.com/index.php/expanding-linux-partitions-part-2-of-2/ to maximise the space available for the desktop. I did another

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

and off it went installing again.  Four hours later I came back and saw the install was finished and rebooted the BBB and up came the familiar Ubuntu desktop and login prompt. However the mouse cursor was twitching and the video flickering. I typed in the password, moved the mouse and the BBB froze and all the blue LED stopped flashing. I powered off the BBB and repeated the process and it still twitched and froze when the mouse was moved.

I did retry without expanding the file system, same result.I think I will still stick with 12.04 if I want a desktop!!

Just  to make sure of no issues with the BBB I loaded a previously saved 12.04LTE with desktop Image onto a microsd card and booted the BBB and it worked perfectly

Portable display for the Beaglebone Spectrum Analyser

Finally got round to trying to put the 7" LCD display in a case. Went to the local Radioshack and found they had  Project Enclosures (8x6x3") as part number 270-1809 for $9. The display was mounted in the base of the unit after cutting out a hole just big enough for the display area. The interface board was mounted on the bottom wall with the connectors showing through a hole cut in the box "lid". The switch PCB was mounted on the right side wall. Currently the switches are pressed with a paperclip until i can find some real switch caps. Took about an hour with a drill and file without a vice to hold it in on the apartment balcony! Good exercise after the Thanksgiving Turkey!

The beaglebone black spectrum analyser is now portable!

Beaglebone Black Spectrum Analyser

I had seen Stephen Ongs youtube video and decided to give it a try. I followed the detailed instructions at  http://robotics.ong.id.au/2013/08/25/viewrf-rtl-sdr-spectrum-analyzer-for-bbb-software/ (remembering to include the "opkg install libusb-1.0-dev" mentioned in the comments) and it worked first time! I used a monitor not the LCD-7 Display ($150 if you can get them!)

I did not need to expand the file system to increase the available space to the full 8GB. When installed it only used 44% of the around 2GB available

The display (like the RTL-SDR dongle) has a bandwidth of ~2MHz but a 2GHz spectrum analyser for $65 one cannot complain

BeagleBone Black Ubuntu 13.04 with desktop... FAILURE!!

Flushed with success of getting Ubuntu 12.4 working with a Desktop I decided to see if Ubuntu 13.04 would work with a Desktop

I downloaded ubuntu-raring-13.04-armhf-3.8.13-bone20.img from http://circuitco.com/support/index.php?title=Ubuntu_On_BeagleBone_Black#Main_Process unzipped it and wrote the image to an 8GB microsd card using win32diskimager programme on my windows machine

The microsd booted and gave me the ubuntu 13.04 welcome and login prompt. which resulted in the Ubuntu command line prompt. I expanded the file system using the instructions at http://www.armhf.com/index.php/expanding-linux-partitions-part-2-of-2/ to maximise the space available for the desktop. another

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

and off it went installing again.  Four hours later I came back and saw the install was finished and rebooted the BBB and up came the familiar Ubuntu desktop and login prompt. However the mouse cursor was violently twitching and the desktop background flickering. I typed in the password, moved the mouse and the BBB froze and all the blue LED stopped flashing. I powered off the BBB and repeated the process and it still twitched and froze when the mouse was moved. Think I will stick with 12.04 desktop!!

BeagleBone Black Ubuntu 12.04 with desktop... SUCCESS!

A while back I put aside my BBB as I could not get a stable Desktop under Ubuntu see here

I thought by now software may have stabilised and decided to have another attempt

First thoughts went to flashing the onboard EMMC on the BBB board with Ubuntu and running it from there. I  found a suitable image https://rcn-ee.net/deb/flasher/raring/BBB-eMMC-flasher-ubuntu-13.04-2013-09-27.img.xz downloaded it and put it on an 8GB microsd card. Put it into the BBB slot and power it up while holding down the boot switch (the near the hdmi connector) till the blue lights start flashing. Then wait. When complete all 4 blue LED will come on and stay on
Remove the microsd card and reboot. The BBB will start running Ubuntu. At this point I  had to edit /etc/networks/interfaces to set up my static IP for the home network. I could then do

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Went away, when I came back 2 hours later there was an out of disk space message. The 1.9GB of EMMC was not enough!

I reverted back to debian by flashing the eMMC with the image "BBB-eMMC-flasher-2013.06.20.img.xz" from http://beagleboard.org/latest-images. This was put on an microSD card and the BBB powered up with the boot button pressed. Wait till all 4 LEDS are on to show it is finished. Note you cannot flash EMMC if you are running the OS on the EMMC.

I decided to use 12.04 LTS as it was more mature. I downloaded ubuntu-precise-12.04.2-armhf-3.8.13-bone20.img.xz from http://www.armhf.com/index.php/boards/beaglebone-black/#precise unzipped it and wrote the image to an 8GB microsd card using win32diskimager programme on my windows machine

The microsd booted and gave me the ubuntu 12.04 welcome and login prompt. I expanded the file system using the instructions at http://www.armhf.com/index.php/expanding-linux-partitions-part-2-of-2/ to maximise the space available for the desktop. another

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

and off it went installing again.  Four hours later I came back and saw the install was finished and rebooted the BBB and automatically displayed the familiar Ubuntu desktop with no flickering or Instability. Success at last!

Ubuntu on the Beaglebone Black (2)

Next I searched for a desktop. I spent 6 hours installing gnome-desktop. Upon reboot it showed promise, by showing a desktop screen but ignored the mouse and keyboard. So I rebooted and after the 3rd time I managed to get the mouse and keyboard working. I managed to add a new document to the desktop, but after much searching and experimentation I could not add any apps to the desktop, even they were on the machine.


Knowing that 13.04 was experimental, I decided to install 12.10 again http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu#Quantal_12.10_armhf  This took a while, as usual.  I then installed ubuntu-desktop and this showed the same results as installing it under 13.04

So I made another card with 12.10 http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu#Quantal_12.10_armhf and then searched for another desktop. I found one at http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu the lxde desktop.  /bin/bash /boot/uboot/tools/ubuntu/minimal_lxde_desktop.sh took the whole of the Anaheim v Detroit hockey NHL game to install. It did however end up with a desktop with mouse and keyboard. 

I installed wspr without incident, but the big issue was that the screen flickered any time the cpu had to do something AND the cpu usage hit 100% and stayed there. Obviously more work to do!

Ubuntu on the Beaglebone Black (1)

After spending the afternoon over in Fort Worth doing a presentation on the 1.3GHz UK Activity Contest to NTMS, this evening was spent installing Ubuntu on the BBB

Initially I tried the procedure using a prebuilt image  at http://www.armhf.com/index.php/boards/beaglebone-black/ and eventually, after solving some issues due to priveleges I got a USDHC card produced. Unfortunately, after powering up the BBB with the reset button near the uSDHC pressed as instructed and waiting, it produced lots of flashing blue lights but no video output. Time to try something else.

Next I searched for any other prebuilt images and came across http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu#Raring_13.04_armhf (a later version of Ubuntu) I followed the instructions on my ubuntu laptop which did not need any corrections and built an uSDHC card

Booting the BBB with the reset button pressed it was reassuring to see a penguin appearing on the screen and a demand for login and password

Flushed with success, I decided to try and install WSPR. I used the process of the previous WSPR http://g4fre.blogspot.com/2013/01/wspr-on-rpilapdock-under-raspian.html blog. However all commands had to be typed in letter by letter, as, not having a desktop or browser I couldnt go to this blog and cut and paste!) It built way faster than it ever did on the RPI.

Launching WSPR it complained as usual about having no display to export to, so the next step is to install a desktop, find a sound card (and a browser!)

Beaglebone black is here

As promised, I got an email from Mouser on May 1 saying the Beaglebone black board had been despatched. It arrived may 2 and looks nicely made, apart from the (yellow) RT1 component standing 12mm off the board with the resultant risk of shorting out on the ethernet connector

Following the instructions at http://beagleboard.org/Getting%20Started I updated the software. Its slightly different from the rpi. You put an image on the microsdhc card, plug it into the BBB,  reboot it and it installs it onto the BBB (40 minutes). You remove the card, reboot and off you go. You dont need the card inserted to run the OS. It all came up nicely with the mouse and keyboard on the powered USB hub but connecting to the internet via the WNCE2001 access point or the wifi dongle from the RPI did not succeed after many attempts

Good job I had got all the previous experience editing /etc/Network/interfaces as I needed to edit eth0 to be dhcp. I needed that as clicking the box and the top right of the desktop that looks like an ethernet connector,  and checking the two ethernet ports (one for usb and one for the rj45) said they were already dhcp, but the ifconfig did not agree

Having connected to the internet I expected that like the RPI it would ntp to set the clock. NO it does not but i found at http://cwraig.id.au/?p=513 the way to set it up. I need to automate the process as it needs to be done every restart

I have noticed there is a UBUNTU image for the BBB which I want to have a try with as I have had more experience with that than the supplied BBB OS

Beaglebone Black

Having tried using the Raspberry Pi for digital mode decoding and realised that lack of speed was an issue, I started looking at the beaglebone board that I was looking at for another application. Unfortunately it's biggest drawback for me was that it does not have a video output.

I was very interested to discover that there is an upcoming Beaglebone Black board which has many extra features that the beaglebone board does not have. It has :-

• USB client for power & debug

• USB host
• 512MB SDRAM
• 2GB Flash memory (which can contain the OS)

• Ethernet

• HDMI video & audio

• 2x 46 pin headers
• serial port (rather than via USB)
• user definableLEDS

It also supports Ubuntu and Android

Searching around the distributors I found none had them in stock but Mouser supposedly had some coming in may 2 so one was ordered