Install Beagleboard XM Ubuntu 11.10 with GUI

(LAST UPDATED 1/19/2013) - New blog that superseeds this one...in many ways check it out

       
         So this quick run through will be to illustrate how to get Ubuntu 11.10 and a GUI running on the Beagleboard XM.  Graphical User Interface (GUI, pronouced "Gu eee") is the interface that is used on most computers that does not consist of a Terminal or command prompt.

I do all my setup on my Windows 7 64-bit laptop (HP elitebook, i5 2nd gen). I have Virtual Box installed running Ubuntu Desktop.

One of the first things I install is VirtualBox Guest Additions Installations. This allows me to copy and paste between windows and virualbox. Go up to devices->install guest additions. It will prompt you for your Ubuntu root password. Then just wait. When finished reboot Ubuntu.


Lets begin...


USED Accessories:

• Beagleboard XM rev C
• SanDisk 8GB microSD
• Sony SD to USB reader
• Windows computer using virtual box, running Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin)

Pre-reqs:
Before we begin we need to make sure we have all the required software on our main computer before we continue. Call the following command in your terminal.

sudo apt-get install wget pv dosfstools parted

Step One:

Identify your SD Card in Ubuntu once inserting it and bringing it into VirtualBox. Open the Terminal window and type the following.

df -h

You'll see something like the following, notice how my 4GB flash drive is referenced as /dev/sdb1 this is important and "sdb" will be used later.

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1             6.1G  3.8G  2.1G  65% /
none                  943M  652K  942M   1% /dev
none                  949M  1.1M  948M   1% /dev/shm
none                  949M  100K  949M   1% /var/run
none                  949M     0  949M   0% /var/lock
/dev/sdb1             3.7G   32K  3.7G   1% /media/5DA5-2520

Next you'll want to download the following stable release of Ubuntu for the Beagleboard Xm with the following command. Also, it's about 108MB so it might take a little time to download on your virtualbox or ubuntu host, i'm using virtualbox.

wget http://rcn-ee.net/deb/rootfs/oneiric/ubuntu-11.10-r10-minimal-armel.tar.xz

Once that has downloaded you want to verify that the download was successful, we do this with whats called a checksum.  This is an advance algorithm that spits out a number that can be compared to verify the download was sucessful. To do so type the following by typing:

md5sum ubuntu-11.10-r10-minimal-armel.tar.xz

You must get a result that matches this!

0221ef5b014097a6a42796e54c7c365c  ubuntu-11.10-r10-minimal-armel.tar.xz

Since this is a TAR file, similar to a ZIP in windows so we must extract the files and than go to that directory

tar xJf ubuntu-11.10-r10-minimal-armel.tar.xz
cd ubuntu-11.10-r10-minimal-armel

Now that you're in the right directory its time to call the script that will partition and setup all the files on the micro SD card. Now this part its important to remember the drive name that we did above, "sdb" as this is substituted into the command below.

sudo ./setup_sdcard.sh --mmc /dev/sdb --uboot beagle_xm 

 Mine is taking about 10 mins to setup, this may vary.


After this is complete go into the disk utility found at  System -> Administration ->Disk Utility, and make sure you unmount and Safely Remove the drive (MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS EVERY TIME).

Step Two:

Now that Ubuntu has been installed on your Beagleboard XM you can test it by inserting it into the beagleboard Xm and starting it up. 

NOTE: Default username: ubuntu Password: temppwd

To check the kernel version type the following once it's booted up.

uname -r

At the time of this writing mine is version 3.1.6-x6 , now to check the version of Ubuntu type

lsb_release -a

Step Three:

Now you should have Ubuntu 11.10 installed but you will be missing the Graphical User Interface (GUI). In our case there are many options for user interfaces to install on that can be used but we're going to use XFCE because i've found it works well. Others many be used. Call the following commands to install the GUI.

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install gdm xfce4 xserver-xorg-video-omap3 network-manager

This may take a while to update and install, could take an hour! Once its all installed reboot and log into your new GUI Ubuntu on the Beagleboard XM!

(image may look different on BB)

(image may look different on BB)

If you have problems getting the Ethernet working on bootup try the following commands:

sudo ifconfig -a
sudo dhclient eth0
sudo ifconfig -a

Please leave feedback or email me questions.