Here is the BeagleBone Debian (beta) image you want to test

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Jason Kridner

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Mar 5, 2014, 5:51:19 PM3/5/14
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The latest BeagleBone Debian images are now posted at: http://beagleboard.org/latest-images/

If you've upgraded the firmware on your BeagleBone or BeagleBone Black in the past, the experience will be quite similar, but you might find the eMMC flashing times a bit faster (~15 minutes rather than ~45 minutes) due to less post-installation processing. Using the 2GB uSD card image also flashes a bit faster and can be resized to whatever your uSD card size is using some scripts under /opt/scripts/tools.

Many, many thanks to Robert Nelson, Rob Rittman, Dave Anders, Cody Lacey, the Cloud9 IDE team and so many others in getting us this far.

Please take the time to give a detailed look over this image and report any issues to the bug tracker on elinux.org:
http://bugs.elinux.org/projects/debian-image-releases

While plugged in over USB, you'll see the familiar BEAGLE_BONE drive with START.htm to tell you how to get the drivers configured if you haven't already done so:

Inline image 2


Clicking the link or visiting http://192.168.7.2, you'll see the familiar on-board served documentation:

Inline image 1

I've introduced a few bugs to the documentation (http://github.com/beaglebone/bone101 and http://beagleboard.github.io/bone101), so expect to find a lot of issues there. Patches are welcome as are notes in the bug tracker to make sure I don't miss dotting any i's or crossing any t's. This is your chance to try to get some documentation into the system you'd like to see. I felt it was pretty safe to save the documentation as an in-beta item because it shouldn't impact functionality.

One of the biggest new features you'll see is when you click on the Cloud9 IDE link:

Inline image 3

This is a pre-open-source-beta-only release of version 3 of their IDE. Down at the bottom of the Cloud9 IDE you'll see a new terminal window that runs a full 'tmux' session. You can open up a bunch of these and it makes logging into the board and executing command-line operations *super* simple.

Cloud9 IDE version 3 now includes support for Python and the Adafruit_BBIO library is included in these Debian images. That means you can simply paste in your Python code and hit the "run" button, without any additional download. I checked this out myself by doing a quick LED blink using the Adafruit tutorial (http://learn.adafruit.com/blinking-an-led-with-beaglebone-black/writing-a-program):

Inline image 4

You should also note that the /var/lib/cloud9 directory now contains a git clone of that bone101 repo (http://github.com/beagleboard/bone101), so you can start using the Cloud9 IDE to edit the content live. What I recommend is creating your own fork of the repo and sending me pull requests of any changes you'd like to see.

You can also edit C/C++ code in the Cloud9 IDE, but no 'builder' or 'runner' plug-ins are provided. You will, however, find the Userspace-Arduino (http://elinux.org/Userspace_Arduino) code in /opt/source/Userspace-Arduino. Here's a quick little exercise you can do to blink LED0:

root@beaglebone# cd /opt/source/Userspace-Arduino/arduino-makefile/examples/Blink
root@beaglebone# perl -i -pe 's/13/14/g' Blink.ino
root@beaglebone# make
root@beaglebone# ./build-userspace/Blink.elf

For more advanced C/C++ developers, future releases should include https://github.com/jackmitch/libsoc.

Those familiar with Linux will also note that the init system is 'systemd', which has been helpful in providing reasonable boot times. If you are looking for the journal, you can explore it using 'systemd-journalctl'.

I use a Mac and despite the latest version of HoRNDIS fixing issues with Internet Connection Sharing, getting on the WIFI at home makes getting my BeagleBones on the network much easier, further making grabbing new packages with 'sudo apt-get install' much simpler. Drivers and firmware for many common USB WiFi dongles are included, so be sure to report any that you find missing. These latest images include the drivers for the popular UWN200 adapters provided by Logic Supply. To test it out myself, I uncommented and edited the wlan0 entry in /etc/network/interfaces (including replacing wlan0 with ra0), shutdown, plugged in the adapter and powered up the board again. I'm seeing the issue "rt28xx_open return fail!", but I'm sure this is something we can fix in a few days and provide an updated image. I removed that adapter and plugged in an adapter I bought from Adafruit (and switched ra0 back to wlan0) and got the issue "rtl8192cu:_rtl92cu_init_power_on():<0-0> Failed to polling REG_APS_FSMCO[APFM_ONMAC] done!". Finally, I plugged in a TL-WN822N adapter I bought from Amazon and BINGO---WiFi!!! Anyway, getting reports on what adapters work and don't work would be really helpful at this point as we'll be trying to get a very full set of WiFi drivers included.

This is just a quick intro to some of the experience and what we are focused on fine tuning. Please take the time to check it out and let us know about your experience. It should be known that Koen has continued to advance the state of the Angstrom Distributions images he provides and those continue to serve as a more flexible base for building truly custom Linux distributions needed by many embedded systems developers. However, as our user base has grown, getting a Debian image that feels a bit more familiar to Linux novices is something for which I've heard tremendous demand. If feedback from the community is positive, there will be a switch as to what distribution comes loaded in the eMMC flash on the boards. I hope you enjoy it!



Robert Nelson

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Mar 5, 2014, 6:42:53 PM3/5/14
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I use a Mac and despite the latest version of HoRNDIS fixing issues with Internet Connection Sharing, getting on the WIFI at home makes getting my BeagleBones on the network much easier, further making grabbing new packages with 'sudo apt-get install' much simpler. Drivers and firmware for many common USB WiFi dongles are included, so be sure to report any that you find missing. These latest images include the drivers for the popular UWN200 adapters provided by Logic Supply. To test it out myself, I uncommented and edited the wlan0 entry in /etc/network/interfaces (including replacing wlan0 with ra0), shutdown, plugged in the adapter and powered up the board again. I'm seeing the issue "rt28xx_open return fail!", but I'm sure this is something we can fix in a few days and provide an updated image. I removed that adapter and plugged in an adapter I bought from Adafruit (and switched ra0 back to wlan0) and got the issue "rtl8192cu:_rtl92cu_init_power_on():<0-0> Failed to polling REG_APS_FSMCO[APFM_ONMAC] done!". Finally, I plugged in a TL-WN822N adapter I bought from Amazon and BINGO---WiFi!!! Anyway, getting reports on what adapters work and don't work would be really helpful at this point as we'll be trying to get a very full set of WiFi drivers included.

Talking with the guys at Logic Supply, it's just a small goof in the directory location of the RT2870STA.dat file.

Quick fix via:
cd /opt/scripts/
git pull
./fixes/debian-2014-03-04-to-HEAD.sh

or:
sudo mv /etc/Wireless/RT2870/RT2870STA.dat /etc/Wireless/RT2870STA/RT2870STA.dat

Regards,

--
Robert Nelson
http://www.rcn-ee.com/

Casey Atherton

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Mar 6, 2014, 9:43:37 AM3/6/14
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I can confirm that the UWN200 (and UWN100) are working well with the fix Robert mentioned.  I'm getting a solid connection with WPA2 encryption.

Jason Kridner

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Mar 6, 2014, 10:58:32 AM3/6/14
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If you have a BeagleBone Black and are able to try out this image, it might be good to propose fixing any short-falls you see in what is provided on the image.


On Wednesday, March 5, 2014 5:51:19 PM UTC-5, Jason Kridner wrote:

bothering...@gmail.com

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Mar 6, 2014, 11:04:35 AM3/6/14
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Jason and Robert: well done for this fine upgrade! Seems like a lot of things are really coming together very quickly.
Hardware: BBB A5C; OS Version: Linux beaglebone 3.8.13-bone41 #1 SMP Tue Mar 4 22:51:47 UTC 2014 armv7l GNU/Linux
 
Tried it last night and a lot of things are working well.
Cloud9 IDE debugging works perfectly for javascript. Just have to remember to hit the > button to start the debug running. 
I tried the python sample also, but could not get that to work. I'll investigate more.

My trusty WNA1100 works out of the box with the addition of:
    wpa-ssid "MySSID"                    #SSID name
    wpa-psk  "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...xx" #PSK hex string
into /etc/network/interfaces under wlan0 section.
The Netgear WNA1100 (Atheros chipset) is indeed the most reliable Wifi adapter I have found yet.

My UWN200 (which was very reliable under later Angstrom versions) now works on debian after modifying the /etc/Wireless/RT2870STA directory name and adding the wpa-ssid/wpa-psk to the ra0 section of /etc/network/interfaces.
However, I notice that the UWN200 pumps out a lot of DMESGs every 2 seconds or so. I had the same problem in 3.8.13-bone40 after compiling the kernel module from the Mediatek sources. I think there may be a debug flag turned on in the driver config, causing the frequent DMESGs. I'll check this out and see if they can be easily stopped.
The WNA1100 driver is very quiet in comparison.

I have a TP-Link TL WN725N lying around somewhere (Realtek chipset) that I'll try out also. (I could not get this working reliably in Angstrom - flung in a drawer somewhere!)

One question springs to mind: if I want to run the BBB as a headless server with Node.js and Cloud9, is there anything I can remove from the installed software packages that would be superfluous if I'm not using HDMI, lxde and so on?

Thanks for all the effort. Great software to match Gerald's fine hardware!
-Eamonn

Robert Nelson

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Mar 6, 2014, 11:18:09 AM3/6/14
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On Thu, Mar 6, 2014 at 10:04 AM, <bothering...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Jason and Robert: well done for this fine upgrade! Seems like a lot of
>> things are really coming together very quickly.
>
> Hardware: BBB A5C; OS Version: Linux beaglebone 3.8.13-bone41 #1 SMP Tue Mar
> 4 22:51:47 UTC 2014 armv7l GNU/Linux
>
> Tried it last night and a lot of things are working well.
> Cloud9 IDE debugging works perfectly for javascript. Just have to remember
> to hit the > button to start the debug running.

I'd love to disable this "debug" feature by default, if you happen to
find a fix, I'll add it to the image.

> I tried the python sample also, but could not get that to work. I'll
> investigate more.
>
> My trusty WNA1100 works out of the box with the addition of:
> wpa-ssid "MySSID" #SSID name
> wpa-psk "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...xx" #PSK hex string
> into /etc/network/interfaces under wlan0 section.
> The Netgear WNA1100 (Atheros chipset) is indeed the most reliable Wifi
> adapter I have found yet.
>
> My UWN200 (which was very reliable under later Angstrom versions) now works
> on debian after modifying the /etc/Wireless/RT2870STA directory name and
> adding the wpa-ssid/wpa-psk to the ra0 section of /etc/network/interfaces.
> However, I notice that the UWN200 pumps out a lot of DMESGs every 2 seconds
> or so. I had the same problem in 3.8.13-bone40 after compiling the kernel
> module from the Mediatek sources. I think there may be a debug flag turned
> on in the driver config, causing the frequent DMESGs. I'll check this out
> and see if they can be easily stopped.

For reference, I'm using this Mediatek source version:
http://rcn-ee.net/deb/thirdparty/MT7601/DPO_MT7601U_LinuxSTA_3.0.0.4_20130913.tar.bz2

So If you find the config flag to quiet dmesg, i'll add it to the build snipit.

https://github.com/rcn-ee/farm/blob/master/thirdparty/MT7601.sh

> The WNA1100 driver is very quiet in comparison.
>
> I have a TP-Link TL WN725N lying around somewhere (Realtek chipset) that
> I'll try out also. (I could not get this working reliably in Angstrom -
> flung in a drawer somewhere!)
>
> One question springs to mind: if I want to run the BBB as a headless server
> with Node.js and Cloud9, is there anything I can remove from the installed
> software packages that would be superfluous if I'm not using HDMI, lxde and
> so on?

This should clear most of the lxde/xorg package set:

apt-get remove -y x11-common ; apt-get autoremove

bothering...@gmail.com

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Mar 6, 2014, 5:08:37 PM3/6/14
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Hi Robert,
First, thanks for the instruction to remove x11... that gets my rootfs usage down from about 83% to 69%. More room for building stuff!

The Mediatek driver software has a define in  os/linux/rt_linux.c line 54:

ULONG RTDebugLevel =  RT_DEBUG_TRACE;
+ULONG RTDebugLevel = RT_DEBUG_WARN; //Fix annoying dmsgs; was RT_DEBUG_TRACE;

I've rebuilt the driver with the bone41 headers, and that seems to eliminate most of the dmesgs.

Hope that's useful.

Many thanks - Eamonn

l...@ansync.com

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Mar 6, 2014, 6:54:00 PM3/6/14
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Dittos on the Kudos. With the 3.13 kernel works very nicely: all 7 of my weird USB gadgets work, Networking is good, Chrome on lxde is nice. Node 10 all looks good. Even rebuilding the kernel wasn't too painful (though still not fast enough to ditch the cross-compiler).  I'm not an IDE guy so I can't comment on Cloud9, but I'm happy with gvim... (sorry for the cross-thread snark).

Robert Nelson

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Mar 6, 2014, 7:39:28 PM3/6/14
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Awsome, thanks!

https://github.com/rcn-ee/farm/commit/47a4acff774280b55772d02fccab4ad2ef63212f

builder are back up and running, so the next kernel image test will
have the fix..

Thanks!

m...@timb.us

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Mar 7, 2014, 2:06:26 AM3/7/14
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On Wednesday, March 5, 2014 5:51:19 PM UTC-5, Jason Kridner wrote:
The latest BeagleBone Debian images are now posted at: http://beagleboard.org/latest-images/

I removed that adapter and plugged in an adapter I bought from Adafruit (and switched ra0 back to wlan0) and got the issue "rtl8192cu:_rtl92cu_init_power_on():<0-0> Failed to polling REG_APS_FSMCO[APFM_ONMAC] done!". 

My Edimax rtl8192cu works out of the box, well, sort of… I'm getting seemingly horrible packet loss with the adapter. I've got a Raspberry Pi with the exact same adapter sitting directly next to it that has no issues.

timb@woodpi ~ $ iwconfig

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"Timothy & Star"  Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: 60:33:4B:E8:18:AB   

          Bit Rate:72.2 Mb/s   Sensitivity:0/0  

          Retry:off   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality=100/100  Signal level=75/100  Noise level=0/100

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0


root@beaglebone:~# iwconfig

wlan2     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"Timothy & Star"  

          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: 60:33:4B:E8:18:AB   

          Bit Rate=72.2 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   

          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off

          Encryption key:off

          Power Management:off

          Link Quality=47/70  Signal level=-63 dBm  

          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0

          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:109   Missed beacon:0


Tons of "Invalid misc" errors on the BBB. I thought it might be the adapter itself, but swapping the Pi's adapter for the BBB's yielded the same results. I thought the Pi might be interfering with the signal somehow but that's not the issue either. At least I can actually get this online, unlike Angstrom…

bothering...@gmail.com

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Mar 7, 2014, 7:52:44 AM3/7/14
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Hi Robert,
 
The fix I suggested yesterday still leaves some debug dmesgs.

I tried to eliminate DBG entirely.
However, make with -DDBG removed from os/linux/config.mk lines 290:293

    # config for STA mode

    ifeq ($(RT28xx_MODE),STA)
    --WFLAGS += -DCONFIG_STA_SUPPORT -DSCAN_SUPPORT -DDBG
    ++WFLAGS += -DCONFIG_STA_SUPPORT -DSCAN_SUPPORT        

causes build errors in /sta/sta_cfg.c:
/home/tmp/DPO_MT7601U_LinuxSTA_3.0.0.4_20130913/os/linux/../../sta/sta_cfg.c:8278:4: error: implicit declaration of function âRTMPIoctlMACâ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
/home/tmp/DPO_MT7601U_LinuxSTA_3.0.0.4_20130913/os/linux/../../sta/sta_cfg.c:8282:4: error: implicit declaration of function âRTMPIoctlE2PROMâ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
/home/tmp/DPO_MT7601U_LinuxSTA_3.0.0.4_20130913/os/linux/../../sta/sta_cfg.c:8286:4: error: implicit declaration of function âRTMPIoctlRFâ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]


This can be fixed by adding in an #ifdef DBG...#endif wrapper into:
sta/sta_cfg.c   line 8276:8288

    --
    ++#ifdef DBG  //Include if DBG on
            case CMD_RTPRIV_IOCTL_MAC:
                RTMPIoctlMAC(pAd, pRequest);
                break;

            case CMD_RTPRIV_IOCTL_E2P:
                RTMPIoctlE2PROM(pAd, pRequest);
                break;

            case CMD_RTPRIV_IOCTL_RF:
                RTMPIoctlRF(pAd, pRequest);
                break;
    --
    ++#endif

The above case statements need to be wrapped in an #ifdef DBG ... #endif, 
same as sta/sta_ioctl.c lines 2622:2638:

    #ifdef DBG
            case RTPRIV_IOCTL_MAC:
                RTMP_STA_IoctlHandle(pAd, wrq, CMD_RTPRIV_IOCTL_MAC, 0,
                                    NULL, 0, RT_DEV_PRIV_FLAGS_GET(net_dev));
    /* RTMPIoctlMAC(pAd, wrq); */
                break;
            case RTPRIV_IOCTL_E2P:
                RTMP_STA_IoctlHandle(pAd, wrq, CMD_RTPRIV_IOCTL_E2P, 0,
                                    NULL, 0, RT_DEV_PRIV_FLAGS_GET(net_dev));
    /* RTMPIoctlE2PROM(pAd, wrq); */
                break;
            case RTPRIV_IOCTL_RF:
                RTMP_STA_IoctlHandle(pAd, wrq, CMD_RTPRIV_IOCTL_RF, 0,
                                    NULL, 0, RT_DEV_PRIV_FLAGS_GET(net_dev));
    /* RTMPIoctlRF(pAd, wrq); */
                break;
    #endif /* DBG */

By the way, a quick compare of the WNA1100 (22% RX dropped) and UWN200 (<4% RX dropped).
Looks like the big antenna makes a difference!

Thanks - Eamonn 

sfuga...@gmail.com

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Mar 7, 2014, 4:22:46 PM3/7/14
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Trying to run i2cdetect but keep getting:

Error: Can't use SMBus Quick Write command on this bus

Robert Nelson

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Mar 7, 2014, 8:31:12 PM3/7/14
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On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 3:22 PM, <sfuga...@gmail.com> wrote:

Trying to run i2cdetect but keep getting:

Error: Can't use SMBus Quick Write command on this bus

Well you need to add the optional "-y -f" commands.. (off the top of my head, --help to get the correct options)

Regards, 

michae...@swisscom.com

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Mar 9, 2014, 6:55:26 AM3/9/14
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I am having issues with this image and mmcqd daemon, X crahes often and I end up with an empty console on my LCD 4.3:

[  180.537526] INFO: task mmcqd/0:74 blocked for more than 60 seconds.
[  180.544275] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.
[  180.552668] Kernel panic - not syncing: hung_task: blocked tasks
[  180.559071] [<c0010443>] (unwind_backtrace+0x1/0x8a) from [<c0455ced>] (panic+0x51/0x148)
[  180.567727] [<c0455ced>] (panic+0x51/0x148) from [<c006770b>] (watchdog+0x14f/0x194)
[  180.575937] [<c006770b>] (watchdog+0x14f/0x194) from [<c003fb8f>] (kthread+0x67/0x74)
[  180.584234] [<c003fb8f>] (kthread+0x67/0x74) from [<c000c0dd>] (ret_from_fork+0x11/0x34)
[  180.592778] drm_kms_helper: panic occurred, switching back to text console

I saw this post:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/beagleboard/g8JQWFmw4_w

is this backport from 3.12 part of the image?

Robert Nelson

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Mar 10, 2014, 10:03:28 AM3/10/14
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Yeap:

https://github.com/RobertCNelson/linux-dev/blob/am33x-v3.8/patch.sh#L845

Doesn't really make a difference for 3.8 thou, as you see..

Best to just switch to v3.13.x

Steve French

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Mar 11, 2014, 11:21:52 AM3/11/14
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Hello all!
I have been testing the new official Debian eMMC flasher image for the BBB…
http://beagleboard.org/latest-images/
(…in particular this one Debian (BeagleBone Black - 2GB eMMC) 2014-03-04)

root@vBBB5studioS:/var/lib/cloud9# uname -a
Linux vBBB5studioS 3.8.13-bone41 #1 SMP Tue Mar 4 22:51:47 UTC 2014 armv7l GNU/Linux


Regarding available space on the eMMC, I am seeing this after a fresh flash…
root@vBBB5studioS:/var/lib/cloud9# df -h
Filesystem                                              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs                                                  1.7G  1.3G  284M  83% /
udev                                                     10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs                                                   100M  788K   99M   1% /run
/dev/disk/by-uuid/57e2c7bb-2b31-488e-b9b4-92e3e4c6af20  1.7G  1.3G  284M  83% /
tmpfs                                                   249M     0  249M   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs                                                   249M     0  249M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs                                                   5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
tmpfs                                                   100M     0  100M   0% /run/user
/dev/mmcblk0p1                                           96M   80M   17M  83% /boot/uboot


Does this look right?  Is it really supposed to be 83% full from the start with only 284MB remaining?  I was trying to build some software from source (OLA framework) and during the make process I got some errors about running out of disk space.  If I was to start looking for space to free up, where would I start?  (I have several BBBs and some of them I was hoping to use a GUI on, but most I just use SSH)

Thanks!
-frenchy

Robert Nelson

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Mar 11, 2014, 11:26:11 AM3/11/14
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On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 10:21 AM, Steve French <voltv...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all!
> I have been testing the new official Debian eMMC flasher image for the BBB...
> http://beagleboard.org/latest-images/
> (...in particular this one Debian (BeagleBone Black - 2GB eMMC) 2014-03-04)
>
> root@vBBB5studioS:/var/lib/cloud9# uname -a
> Linux vBBB5studioS 3.8.13-bone41 #1 SMP Tue Mar 4 22:51:47 UTC 2014 armv7l
> GNU/Linux
>
>
> Regarding available space on the eMMC, I am seeing this after a fresh flash...
> root@vBBB5studioS:/var/lib/cloud9# df -h
> Filesystem Size Used Avail
> Use% Mounted on
> rootfs 1.7G 1.3G 284M
> 83% /
> udev 10M 0 10M
> 0% /dev
> tmpfs 100M 788K 99M
> 1% /run
> /dev/disk/by-uuid/57e2c7bb-2b31-488e-b9b4-92e3e4c6af20 1.7G 1.3G 284M
> 83% /
> tmpfs 249M 0 249M
> 0% /dev/shm
> tmpfs 249M 0 249M
> 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
> tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M
> 0% /run/lock
> tmpfs 100M 0 100M
> 0% /run/user
> /dev/mmcblk0p1 96M 80M 17M
> 83% /boot/uboot
>
>
> Does this look right? Is it really supposed to be 83% full from the start
> with only 284MB remaining?

Correct, to meet everyone's out of box pkg requirements, the eMMC is
mostly full. If you drop opencv/python/chromium you'll gain a lot of
space back.

Otherwise, it's just easier to just use the non-flasher image on a
4GB/8GB microSD card.
(making sure to use the "grow_partition.sh" script under
/opt/scripts/tools/ to fully resize the drive)

Hajo Dezelski

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Mar 11, 2014, 3:07:54 PM3/11/14
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Hello,

this was one of the problems with BBB. I managed to install Debian with "BBB-eMMc-flasher-debian-7.4-2014-02-16-2gb.img" installed only Xfce (needed an graphical output) and had about 450 MB left. Beside that I had to install a swap file 128 MB I'm down to 211156. That's not a lot. Under Angstrom I managed to use the sd card with the uEnv.txt as additional storage, but I forgot to withdraw the card when finished and waited while booting up until I noticed that the BBB got stuck.

My question to Robert: Is there a clean way under Debian to format or mount the sd card as additional storage or even better: Is it possible to mount e.g. homedirectories to that card, so that we are not stuck to that damned 2 GB. I know, I could use the card to boot from, but ...

Regards
   Hajo DL1SDZ

Robert Nelson

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Mar 11, 2014, 7:06:40 PM3/11/14
to Beagle Board
On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 2:07 PM, Hajo Dezelski <dl1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> this was one of the problems with BBB. I managed to install Debian with
> "BBB-eMMc-flasher-debian-7.4-2014-02-16-2gb.img" installed only Xfce (needed
> an graphical output) and had about 450 MB left. Beside that I had to install
> a swap file 128 MB I'm down to 211156. That's not a lot. Under Angstrom I
> managed to use the sd card with the uEnv.txt as additional storage, but I
> forgot to withdraw the card when finished and waited while booting up until
> I noticed that the BBB got stuck.

You can also dump all the man pages, locales, etc. There is a lot of
documentation installed by default in debian that wasn't in the
Angstrom images's..

> My question to Robert: Is there a clean way under Debian to format or mount
> the sd card as additional storage or even better: Is it possible to mount
> e.g. homedirectories to that card, so that we are not stuck to that damned 2
> GB. I know, I could use the card to boot from, but ...

Yes, usually any tools fdisk/sfdisk/gparted reformat the microSD card.
As long as there isn't an "uEnv.txt" file with the variable "uenvcmd"
set in the first partition the bootloader will ignore the microSD
card. Just add it to /etc/fstab and create a new home diretory on it.

Hajo Dezelski

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Mar 12, 2014, 8:39:17 AM3/12/14
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Hello Robert,

thanks for your advice. I deleted the man pages and some other stuff.
It helped. Now I have about 15 % available. Great. I noticed, that
most of the non-critical packages (from: Reduce Debian) were already
missing.

But bare with me, I'm not a Linux Guru like you.
I reformatted the sd card using a script that I found: mkcard.sh found
in an Angstrom discussion.

It created:

Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System
/dev/mmcblk0p1 * 0+ 8 9- 72261 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/mmcblk0p2 9 965 957 7687102+ 83 Linux

And I found the mmcblk0p2 partition named rootfs with a Lost and found
directory.
My uEnv.txt (found in an Angstrom-discussion) looks like:

bootpart=1:2
mmcroot=/dev/mmcblk1p2

I didn't find the vriable " uenvcmd". Perhaps there is something
missing in the uEnv.txt.
The I create on rootfs a directory and an fstab file? And write ?
And should I create the home etc. directories in that partition?

Sorry for bothering you again. Next time we meet , the bottle of wine is on me.

Thanks and regards
Hajo
Gruss
Hajo

---
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... http://hajos-kontrapunkte.blogspot.com/
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mkcard.sh

Robert Nelson

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Mar 12, 2014, 8:43:15 AM3/12/14
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On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 7:39 AM, Hajo Dezelski <dl1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Robert,
>
> thanks for your advice. I deleted the man pages and some other stuff.
> It helped. Now I have about 15 % available. Great. I noticed, that
> most of the non-critical packages (from: Reduce Debian) were already
> missing.
>
> But bare with me, I'm not a Linux Guru like you.
> I reformatted the sd card using a script that I found: mkcard.sh found
> in an Angstrom discussion.
>
> It created:
>
> Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System
> /dev/mmcblk0p1 * 0+ 8 9- 72261 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
> /dev/mmcblk0p2 9 965 957 7687102+ 83 Linux
>
> And I found the mmcblk0p2 partition named rootfs with a Lost and found
> directory.
> My uEnv.txt (found in an Angstrom-discussion) looks like:
>
> bootpart=1:2
> mmcroot=/dev/mmcblk1p2

With my image, don't worry about this. ^^^ As long as there is no
"uEnv.txt" file on the microSD, u-boot will always use the factory one
i installed in the eMMC. And since it uses uuid's instead of the raw
partition name, it'll always find the "rootfs" partition no matter
what. So just blank/format your microSD as a simple ext4 partition.

Robert Nelson

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Mar 12, 2014, 8:45:33 AM3/12/14
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On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Robert Nelson <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 7:39 AM, Hajo Dezelski <dl1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello Robert,
>>
>> thanks for your advice. I deleted the man pages and some other stuff.
>> It helped. Now I have about 15 % available. Great. I noticed, that
>> most of the non-critical packages (from: Reduce Debian) were already
>> missing.

PS: if you want to get crazy, the same script that generated this
image, can also build a version of debian that'll fit in 64MB. But at
that point all you have is perl/apt-get/dpkg..

Hajo Dezelski

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Mar 12, 2014, 8:49:14 AM3/12/14
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Robert,

that was a fast one. Thanks again - discussions in other groups can
sometimes lead you to nowhere and you get lost. (There was written
that the uEnv.txt was mandatory) So I will not use your 64 MB image.
Sorry, I am happy that this one is running.

Have a nice day
and so long from Nowhere man

Hajo

---
... indessen wandelt harmlos droben das Gestirn
... http://hajos-kontrapunkte.blogspot.com/


Robert Nelson

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Mar 12, 2014, 8:53:57 AM3/12/14
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On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 7:49 AM, Hajo Dezelski <dl1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Robert,
>
> that was a fast one. Thanks again - discussions in other groups can
> sometimes lead you to nowhere and you get lost. (There was written
> that the uEnv.txt was mandatory) So I will not use your 64 MB image.
> Sorry, I am happy that this one is running.

Yeah, this requirement was a bug in the version of u-boot shipped with
the board.

You can see how i worked around the issue here:

https://github.com/eewiki/u-boot-patches/blob/master/v2013.10/0001-am335x_evm-uEnv.txt-bootz-n-fixes.patch#L154

Essentially the original factory u-boot, only checked for the presense
of the microSD, if found it would try to boot with it no matter what.

Instead, I set it up, to search for a uEnv.txt, try to load it and
test if "uenvcmd" was set. Thus a little more error proof..

Steve French

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Mar 12, 2014, 11:58:07 AM3/12/14
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Robert,
Thanks for your response!  I have 15 BBBs and one uSD card, so I am kinda leaning toward using the eMMC on each.  

Robert said: 
Correct, to meet everyone's out of box pkg requirements, the eMMC is
mostly full.  If you drop opencv/python/chromium you'll gain a lot of
space back.


Pardon my ignorance, but is there a "magic scalpel" command to free up all space related to Opencv?   ...and then separately, Chromium?  Something is not right with the approach I tried...

  •  apt-get autoremove opencv*
After this operation, 27.8 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
 
  • apt-get autoremove chromium*
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package 'chromium' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.


...maybe I just need to learn how to use "aptitude" ?  I am guessing that an "uninstall" or "remove" or "autoremove" command is better than going through and deleting random directories full of opencv/chromium related things?

Thanks for any insights!!!
ps- I decided to remove all documentation on one of my BBBs, so I did this...
rm /usr/share/doc -R
...that seemed to free up 91MB, but it still wasnt enough!!!


Ran out of space again during "make"!!!!!!

ola-rdm-discover.cpp:232:1: fatal error: closing dependency file .deps/ola-rdm-discover.Tpo: No space left on device
compilation terminated.
The bug is not reproducible, so it is likely a hardware or OS problem.
make[2]: *** [ola-rdm-discover.o] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/ola/examples'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/ola'
make: *** [all] Error 2


Thx!
-frenchy

Robert Nelson

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Mar 12, 2014, 12:11:52 PM3/12/14
to Beagle Board
On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Steve French <voltv...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Robert,
> Thanks for your response! I have 15 BBBs and one uSD card, so I am kinda
> leaning toward using the eMMC on each.
>
> Robert said:
>>
>> Correct, to meet everyone's out of box pkg requirements, the eMMC is
>> mostly full. If you drop opencv/python/chromium you'll gain a lot of
>> space back.
>>
>
> Pardon my ignorance, but is there a "magic scalpel" command to free up all
> space related to Opencv? ...and then separately, Chromium? Something is
> not right with the approach I tried...
>
>
> apt-get autoremove opencv*
>
> After this operation, 27.8 MB disk space will be freed.
> Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

apt-get remove libopencv-* --purge ; apt-get autoremove

> apt-get autoremove chromium*

So due to the build requirements, chromium is currently not a *.deb
package. I'd like to change this. But to give you an idea, it takes a
Quad Core Cortex A9, running at 1.2Ghz with 2GB of ram and a 7200rpm
sata drive 8 hours to build..

SO just:
rm -rf /usr/lib/chromium/
rm -f /usr/bin/chromium

> ...maybe I just need to learn how to use "aptitude" ? I am guessing that an
> "uninstall" or "remove" or "autoremove" command is better than going through
> and deleting random directories full of opencv/chromium related things?
>
> Thanks for any insights!!!
> ps- I decided to remove all documentation on one of my BBBs, so I did
> this...
> rm /usr/share/doc -R
> ...that seemed to free up 91MB, but it still wasnt enough!!!

you can also dump:

/usr/share/man/

Dennis Cote

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Mar 12, 2014, 2:45:47 PM3/12/14
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On Monday, March 10, 2014 8:03:28 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
Doesn't really make a difference for 3.8 thou, as you see..

Best to just switch to v3.13.x


Robert,

How do you propose that users switch to v3.13.x (by which I assume you mean the Linux kernel version)? 

My BBB panics like this on every boot using the Debian 2014-03-04 image. I can't even log in to the text console.

Dennis Cote

Robert Nelson

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Mar 12, 2014, 3:02:55 PM3/12/14
to Beagle Board
"panics" on every boot?

Do you have any error log? I can't really help with that limited info.

Easitest thing to do is, grab the non-flasher:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/beagle-debian/bone-debian-7.4-2014-03-04-2gb.img.xz

flash it to a microSD card..

mount the first fat partition, edit "uEnv.txt" remove the "quiet" from
optargs.. save unmount..

Next using a usb-serial convert log the full serial boot log for me.

Steve French of Volt Vision

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Mar 12, 2014, 3:39:26 PM3/12/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
Dennis,
I am not sure what you mean by "BBB panics", but I can tell you that I have been upgrading my kernel using the new Debian eMMC flasher image.  I have done it on several BBBs so far with no problem....

Before the procedure:
uname -a
Linux beaglebone 3.8.13-bone41 #1 SMP Tue Mar 4 22:51:47 UTC 2014 armv7l GNU/Linux

Then Update Kernel:
  • cd /opt/scripts/
  • git pull
  • ./tools/update_kernel.sh --beta-kernel
  • reboot
And after the procedure:
uname -a
Linux beaglebone 3.13.6-bone7 #1 SMP Sat Mar 8 01:11:45 UTC 2014 armv7l GNU/Linux

Hope this helps....
-frenchy



--
Respectfully,
Steve French
800.664.7256.office
814.730.0003.cell

President, Volt Vision
www.voltvision.com



--

Alexander Holler

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Mar 12, 2014, 3:41:55 PM3/12/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
Am 12.03.2014 20:02, schrieb Robert Nelson:
> On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 1:45 PM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Monday, March 10, 2014 8:03:28 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
>>>
>>> Doesn't really make a difference for 3.8 thou, as you see..
>>>
>>> Best to just switch to v3.13.x
>>>
>>
>> Robert,
>>
>> How do you propose that users switch to v3.13.x (by which I assume you mean
>> the Linux kernel version)?
>>
>> My BBB panics like this on every boot using the Debian 2014-03-04 image. I
>> can't even log in to the text console.
>
> "panics" on every boot?
>
> Do you have any error log? I can't really help with that limited info.

I'm not sure if you're talking about a non-patched 3.13.x, but I've
recently tried (plain) 3.13.6 and received a panic (oops) straight on
boot in musb (a bt-dongle was connected on boot). So I've just switched
back to some heavy patched 3.11 I haven't many problems with.

Sorry, no log too and I'm currently too lazy to fiddle with the bone and
produce one, but it might be a hint to try booting with some usb-device
connected.

Regards,

Alexander Holler

William Hermans

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Mar 12, 2014, 3:43:55 PM3/12/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
He has done something wrong, or has missed a step in setting up his media.

Having a serial debug cable on the board and working would clear things up in a hurry.


You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BeagleBoard" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to beagleboard...@googlegroups.com.

Dennis Cote

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Mar 12, 2014, 4:21:12 PM3/12/14
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On Wednesday, March 12, 2014 1:02:55 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
"panics" on every boot?

Do you have any error log?  I can't really help with that limited info.


When I said "panics like this" I meant in the same way that as the user whose message you replied to. I have copied his log below. On my BBB it usually happens just after the 120 second mark, but I have also seen it happen at 180 seconds as below. The rest of the messages are identical (same addresses etc.).

[  180.537526] INFO: task mmcqd/0:74 blocked for more than 60 seconds.

[  180.544275] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.
[  180.552668] Kernel panic - not syncing: hung_task: blocked tasks
[  180.559071] [<c0010443>] (unwind_backtrace+0x1/0x8a) from [<c0455ced>] (panic+0x51/0x148)
[  180.567727] [<c0455ced>] (panic+0x51/0x148) from [<c006770b>] (watchdog+0x14f/0x194)
[  180.575937] [<c006770b>] (watchdog+0x14f/0x194) from [<c003fb8f>] (kthread+0x67/0x74)
[  180.584234] [<c003fb8f>] (kthread+0x67/0x74) from [<c000c0dd>] (ret_from_fork+0x11/0x34)
[  180.592778] drm_kms_helper: panic occurred, switching back to text console
Easitest thing to do is, grab the non-flasher:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/beagle-debian/bone-debian-7.4-2014-03-04-2gb.img.xz

flash it to a microSD card..


That is what I did, and what I am running.
 
mount the first fat partition, edit "uEnv.txt" remove the "quiet" from
optargs.. save unmount..

Next using a usb-serial convert log the full serial boot log for me.


Will do. 

Robert Nelson

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Mar 12, 2014, 4:31:13 PM3/12/14
to Beagle Board
On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 3:21 PM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
>
>
> On Wednesday, March 12, 2014 1:02:55 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
>>
>> "panics" on every boot?
>>
>> Do you have any error log? I can't really help with that limited info.
>>
>
> When I said "panics like this" I meant in the same way that as the user
> whose message you replied to. I have copied his log below. On my BBB it
> usually happens just after the 120 second mark, but I have also seen it
> happen at 180 seconds as below. The rest of the messages are identical (same
> addresses etc.).
>
> [ 180.537526] INFO: task mmcqd/0:74 blocked for more than 60 seconds.
>
> [ 180.544275] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables
> this message.
> [ 180.552668] Kernel panic - not syncing: hung_task: blocked tasks
> [ 180.559071] [<c0010443>] (unwind_backtrace+0x1/0x8a) from [<c0455ced>]
> (panic+0x51/0x148)
> [ 180.567727] [<c0455ced>] (panic+0x51/0x148) from [<c006770b>]
> (watchdog+0x14f/0x194)
> [ 180.575937] [<c006770b>] (watchdog+0x14f/0x194) from [<c003fb8f>]
> (kthread+0x67/0x74)
> [ 180.584234] [<c003fb8f>] (kthread+0x67/0x74) from [<c000c0dd>]
> (ret_from_fork+0x11/0x34)
> [ 180.592778] drm_kms_helper: panic occurred, switching back to text
> console

Yeah this annoyance..

What brand of microSD cards are you using?

We've back ported a few mmc tweaks from later kernels, yet some cards
still show this issue..

Dennis Cote

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Mar 12, 2014, 5:21:43 PM3/12/14
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On Wednesday, March 12, 2014 2:31:13 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
Yeah this annoyance..

What brand of microSD cards are you using?


I'm using a 4GB Kingston Technology cards. Note, I have not expanded the partition to fill the card yet, I just to boot with it after copying the image.

I'll get you the complete boot log if that is still of use.

Dennis Cote

Dennis Cote

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Mar 12, 2014, 6:08:50 PM3/12/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
On Wednesday, March 12, 2014 1:02:55 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
mount the first fat partition, edit "uEnv.txt" remove the "quiet" from
optargs.. save unmount..

Next using a usb-serial convert log the full serial boot log for me.

Robert,

The uEnv.txt file from the FAT partition in this image (attached) does not have optargs defined. Both sections where optargs appears are commented out.

There is a line that says:

systemd=quiet init=/lib/systemd/systemd

I'm not sure if you mean to remove the quiet from this line, or perhaps something else.

Dennis Cote

 

uEnv.txt

Dennis Cote

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Mar 12, 2014, 6:18:02 PM3/12/14
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On Wednesday, March 12, 2014 4:08:50 PM UTC-6, Dennis Cote wrote:
There is a line that says:

systemd=quiet init=/lib/systemd/systemd

I'm not sure if you mean to remove the quiet from this line, or perhaps something else.

OK, so I removed the quiet from the systemd definition and rebooted my BBB. It did log a lot more stuff. The complete boot log is attached. 

Since you seem t think the problem is SD card specific, I will try again with a different card.

HTH
Dennis Cote
bootlog.txt

Dennis Cote

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Mar 13, 2014, 10:51:48 AM3/13/14
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On Wednesday, March 12, 2014 4:18:02 PM UTC-6, Dennis Cote wrote:
Since you seem t think the problem is SD card specific, I will try again with a different card.


Using a different 8GB SD card my BBB boots this new image as expected. Hopefully the bootlog from the problem card will help identify the issue. 

Dennis Cote 

Dennis Cote

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Mar 13, 2014, 11:47:36 AM3/13/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
Please take the time to give a detailed look over this image and report any issues to the bug tracker on elinux.org:
http://bugs.elinux.org/projects/debian-image-releases


On booting this new image I noticed a few issues immediately, but I'm not sure if one is by design. The ethernet interface is not setup in this image. Running ifconfig shows no IP address for the ethernet port.  

Looking at /etc/network/interfaces I see that the eth0 section is commented out.

I tried adding the following to /etc/network/interfaces but I still have no IP address assigned (as if dhcp wasn't aquirring an address). Commenting out the allow-hotplug line makes no difference.

auto eth0
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Shouldn't the ethernet interface be setup by default? How does one setup dhcp on Debian if not through the interfaces file?

Also, how is one supposed to use the Root Terminal in the LXDE environment? It won't accept the admin password for the debian user, and I don't know if there is a different root password?

Thanks.
Dennis Cote 

Robert Nelson

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Mar 13, 2014, 11:56:05 AM3/13/14
to Beagle Board
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 10:47 AM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
>> Please take the time to give a detailed look over this image and report
>> any issues to the bug tracker on elinux.org:
>> http://bugs.elinux.org/projects/debian-image-releases
>>
>
> On booting this new image I noticed a few issues immediately, but I'm not
> sure if one is by design. The ethernet interface is not setup in this image.
> Running ifconfig shows no IP address for the ethernet port.
>
> Looking at /etc/network/interfaces I see that the eth0 section is commented
> out.
>
> I tried adding the following to /etc/network/interfaces but I still have no
> IP address assigned (as if dhcp wasn't aquirring an address). Commenting out
> the allow-hotplug line makes no difference.
>
> auto eth0
> allow-hotplug eth0
> iface eth0 inet dhcp
>
> Shouldn't the ethernet interface be setup by default? How does one setup
> dhcp on Debian if not through the interfaces file?

The wicd deamon should setup eth0 within 30 seconds on 2nd boot.
(first boot there is a slight delay as the ssh key's are generated).

If you uncomment out the eth0 interface in /etc/network/interfaces
boot time falls from 15seconds to 35ish..

> Also, how is one supposed to use the Root Terminal in the LXDE environment?
> It won't accept the admin password for the debian user, and I don't know if
> there is a different root password?

Nice catch, i need to remove that application from the menu. It was
requested to blank out the root password for ease of use.

Dennis Cote

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Mar 13, 2014, 1:08:42 PM3/13/14
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On Thursday, March 13, 2014 9:56:05 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
The wicd deamon should setup eth0 within 30 seconds on 2nd boot.
(first boot there is a slight delay as the ssh key's are generated).


I had rebooted many times. I hadn't paid any attention to the wicd program since it seemed to be for WIFI which I am not using. 

I had to open the preferences and check the option to always show wired interfaces (I also checked always switch to wired connection when available) before I saw the eth0 connection. I then clicked the connect button and waited until it finished. It still didn't connect, but after I rebooted again, it did connect using dhcp. Since then it has been connecting on each boot.
 
If you uncomment out the eth0 interface in /etc/network/interfaces
boot time falls from 15seconds to 35ish..


I'm not sure what you mean by this. "unccomment out" is ambiguous. Did you mean "uncomment", or did you mean "comment out".

Is it faster to boot with the eth0 defined in /etc/network/interfaces, or is it faster with the eth0 section commented out? Why? Is it redundant to define eth0 here, and then have wicd also connect eth0; or does having defined in the interafces file cause wicd to skip its redundant setup later?
 
On an unrelated issue, how do you setup the timezone for the time display on the LXDE desktop? I have set /etc/timezone. I have also used tzselect and added the TZ environment variable to my .profile as suggested in the output of tzselect. It does not appear that my .profile file is being executed though. I have a user bin directory in my /home/debian directory, and it is not being added to the path as it seems it should be by reading the .profile file. I checked and I don't have a .bash_profile or .bash_login file which would prevent .profile from executing. Any ideas?

Dennis Cote


Robert Nelson

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Mar 13, 2014, 1:30:27 PM3/13/14
to Beagle Board
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 12:08 PM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
> On Thursday, March 13, 2014 9:56:05 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
>>
>> The wicd deamon should setup eth0 within 30 seconds on 2nd boot.
>> (first boot there is a slight delay as the ssh key's are generated).
>>
>
> I had rebooted many times. I hadn't paid any attention to the wicd program
> since it seemed to be for WIFI which I am not using.
>
> I had to open the preferences and check the option to always show wired
> interfaces (I also checked always switch to wired connection when available)
> before I saw the eth0 connection. I then clicked the connect button and
> waited until it finished. It still didn't connect, but after I rebooted
> again, it did connect using dhcp. Since then it has been connecting on each
> boot.
>
>>
>> If you uncomment out the eth0 interface in /etc/network/interfaces
>> boot time falls from 15seconds to 35ish..
>>
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by this. "unccomment out" is ambiguous. Did you
> mean "uncomment", or did you mean "comment out".

The first.

> Is it faster to boot with the eth0 defined in /etc/network/interfaces, or is
> it faster with the eth0 section commented out? Why? Is it redundant to
> define eth0 here, and then have wicd also connect eth0; or does having
> defined in the interafces file cause wicd to skip its redundant setup later?

When, eth0 is defined in /etc/network/interfaces, the login prompt
(serial/video) can be delayed for up to 2 minutes as the system
attempts to get an ip. If a cable is NOT connected it will wait the
full 2 minutes.

So by allowing the wicd/systemd deamon to take care of it, we get the
login prompt must faster

>
> On an unrelated issue, how do you setup the timezone for the time display on
> the LXDE desktop? I have set /etc/timezone. I have also used tzselect and
> added the TZ environment variable to my .profile as suggested in the output
> of tzselect. It does not appear that my .profile file is being executed
> though. I have a user bin directory in my /home/debian directory, and it is
> not being added to the path as it seems it should be by reading the .profile
> file. I checked and I don't have a .bash_profile or .bash_login file which
> would prevent .profile from executing. Any ideas?


root@beaglebone:/# rm /etc/localtime
root@beaglebone:/# ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Central /etc/localtime
root@beaglebone:/# date
Thu Mar 13 12:13:06 CDT 2014

Give lxde a minute or two to update..

William Hermans

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Mar 13, 2014, 2:04:29 PM3/13/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata  <--- Doesnt work ?


Robert Nelson

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Mar 13, 2014, 2:49:52 PM3/13/14
to Beagle Board
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 1:04 PM, William Hermans <yyr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> dpkg-reconfigure tzdata <--- Doesnt work ?

Yeap, that works too..

Which brings up a fun question. What default timezone do you guys
want? Or is "utc" generic enough? My only vote is US/Central as that
is where i'm located..

Hajo Dezelski

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Mar 13, 2014, 3:41:03 PM3/13/14
to beagleboard
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 7:49 PM, Robert Nelson <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Or is "utc" generic enough?


It is "utc" generic ! ;-)

72 de

Robert Nelson

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Mar 13, 2014, 3:45:19 PM3/13/14
to Beagle Board
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 2:41 PM, Hajo Dezelski <dl1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 7:49 PM, Robert Nelson <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Or is "utc" generic enough?
>
>
> It is "utc" generic ! ;-)

I know! ;) I was having fun playing with that sentence.

Mike

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Mar 13, 2014, 4:01:54 PM3/13/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
On 03/13/2014 02:49 PM, Robert Nelson wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 1:04 PM, William Hermans <yyr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> dpkg-reconfigure tzdata <--- Doesnt work ?
> Yeap, that works too..
>
> Which brings up a fun question. What default timezone do you guys
> want? Or is "utc" generic enough? My only vote is US/Central as that
> is where i'm located..
>
> Regards,
>
I'd rather see a system come up "UTC" rather than some other TZ not
specific to me. I don't have a problem changing it if I have too
though. UTC would seem to make the most sense.

Mike

Dennis Cote

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Mar 13, 2014, 4:26:33 PM3/13/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
On Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:49:52 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
Which brings up a fun question.  What default timezone do you guys
want? Or is "utc" generic enough?  

I think UTC would be best, but there should be clear instructions for how to change it. 

Most users (like me) are not Linux experts and don't know how to do many of these basic things. I though /etc/timezone seemed like the perfect place to make this change, but it turns out that was wrong. Google led me to tzselect which also looked promising, but again it was wrong. 

Dennis Cote

Robert Nelson

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Mar 13, 2014, 4:33:59 PM3/13/14
to Beagle Board
So then, here's a question for you. Where do you want to see those
type of faq's listed?

I can pretty much dump them anywhere, but the hard question is where...

Bill Traynor

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Mar 13, 2014, 4:45:45 PM3/13/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
I thought you were posting all of your stuff to elinux.org?


>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Robert Nelson
> http://www.rcn-ee.com/
>

Robert Nelson

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Mar 13, 2014, 4:49:39 PM3/13/14
to Beagle Board
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 3:45 PM, Bill Traynor <btra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 4:33 PM, Robert Nelson <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 3:26 PM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
>>> On Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:49:52 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Which brings up a fun question. What default timezone do you guys
>>>> want? Or is "utc" generic enough?
>>>
>>>
>>> I think UTC would be best, but there should be clear instructions for how to
>>> change it.
>>>
>>> Most users (like me) are not Linux experts and don't know how to do many of
>>> these basic things. I though /etc/timezone seemed like the perfect place to
>>> make this change, but it turns out that was wrong. Google led me to tzselect
>>> which also looked promising, but again it was wrong.
>>
>> So then, here's a question for you. Where do you want to see those
>> type of faq's listed?
>>
>> I can pretty much dump them anywhere, but the hard question is where...
>
> I thought you were posting all of your stuff to elinux.org?

Oh I do. ;) I'm just hoping to get a fresh perspective and see where
a new user expects it to be today. (As we can never go back to being
"new"..)

Hajo Dezelski

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Mar 13, 2014, 5:00:00 PM3/13/14
to beagleboard
Oh, I see,

It was meant Underwater Technology Conference where you will be
invited. More generic is not possible.

I hope you don't mind:
http://hajos-kontrapunkte.blogspot.de/2014/03/wspr-bone-linux-adentures-in-beaglebone.html

73 de
Hajo

---
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... http://hajos-kontrapunkte.blogspot.com/


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Dennis Cote

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Mar 13, 2014, 5:24:35 PM3/13/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
On Thursday, March 13, 2014 2:33:59 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
So then, here's a question for you. Where do you want to see those
type of faq's listed?

I can pretty much dump them anywhere, but the hard question is where...

I don't know where they should be stored, but there should definitely be links on the beagleboard.org main page. It seems to me that if Debian is going to replace Angstrom, then a link to the Debian release images and FAQs should be put there. Eventually, the Angstrom info could be deprecated, or rather archived and its visibility reduced.

It seems to me that there are currently too many places to go to get the various linux distributions and kernels, and none of them seem to be officially sanctioned as the "standard" release. This leads to unnecessary confusion for new users. Some info on beagleboard.org, some info at circuitco.com, some info at elinux.org, some info at armhf.com, etc., not to mention all the other stuff at ti.com.

The official wiki at http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack#Software_Resources doesn't even mention this Debian releases (and it should if you want people to test it). The community wiki at http://elinux.org/BeagleBone_Community#Debian does list a Debian release, but it is a different, and incompatible, arm EABI version from this new armhf release.

I appreciate all the hard work that people have done to prepare all this information, but it's a little like the wild west when you first start looking around. 

Dennis Cote

Alexander Holler

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Mar 13, 2014, 5:24:43 PM3/13/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
motd or the banner for ssh, together with an instruction to use rm to
get rid of the message.

Listing those basic steps there would get rid of thousands question from
people using broken, old and/or outdated instructions belonging to some
broken/old and/or outdated images.

Regards,

Alexander Holler

Robert Nelson

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Mar 13, 2014, 5:32:38 PM3/13/14
to Beagle Board
>> So then, here's a question for you. Where do you want to see those
>> type of faq's listed?
>>
>> I can pretty much dump them anywhere, but the hard question is where...
>
>
> motd or the banner for ssh, together with an instruction to use rm to get
> rid of the message.

I've been dumping the default username/password + the current ip
address if we get it in time to "/etc/issue" so it shows up on both
the dvi and serial terminal. We could dump an elinux link faq there
too. Good call on the ssh message, didn't think of that.

Alexander Holler

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Mar 13, 2014, 5:33:58 PM3/13/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
And if some gui is supported, open an editor like gvim or similiar to
show those instructions gui-users too (by using some autoexec mechanism
the gui in question offers).

Anything else than in-image-instructions which people will see when they
start exploring the board doesn't help as history has shown.

Alexander Holler

Robert Nelson

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Mar 13, 2014, 5:43:09 PM3/13/14
to Beagle Board
> And if some gui is supported, open an editor like gvim or similiar to show
> those instructions gui-users too (by using some autoexec mechanism the gui
> in question offers).

leafpad is installed so that would be pretty easy, to show web link
for help. xchat2 is even installed, ( i was feeling a little evil and
was temped to have that autoconnect to beagle on #freenode (it
doesn't..))


> Anything else than in-image-instructions which people will see when they
> start exploring the board doesn't help as history has shown.

I agree, I've been there too on irc, when they've been lucky enough to find it..

Dennis Cote

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Mar 13, 2014, 6:30:47 PM3/13/14
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On Thursday, March 6, 2014 8:58:32 AM UTC-7, Jason Kridner wrote:
If you have a BeagleBone Black and are able to try out this image, it might be good to propose fixing any short-falls you see in what is provided on the image.

Every time I boot, or logout of LXDE, I get a touchscreen calibration program that runs. It says 'Touchscreen calibration for Logitech USB Keyboard' (I think it sometimes says Mouse, but I could be mistaken). I am running with a HDMI monitor and a USB keyboard and mouse connected to an external powered hub. I have no touchscreen to calibrate and this wastes about 15 seconds on each logout. What starts this program, and how do I disable it? 

Also, the .profile file in the /home/debian directory is not being executed. I don't have a .bash_profile or .bash_login file to prevent it from being loaded. I noticed the default shell is dash rather than bash, at least /bin/sh is linked to /bin/dash, but the dash man page says it should read commands from .profile as well. When I tried the chsh command it says the default login shell is /bin/bash which should definitely read from .profile. 

I can tell that .profile is not being executed because I have a personal bin directory at /home/debian/bin. This directory should be added to the PATH by the .profile, but that isn't happening. I have also set a new environment variable in my .profile and it does not appear in the output of the env command. Any ideas why my .profile is not executing?

Dennis Cote
 

Hajo Dezelski

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Mar 13, 2014, 6:45:37 PM3/13/14
to beagleboard

I second that. I am one of those who just started going west into the wild. And I am still not sure which information are official and which are not. However I am now sure that I didn't grab Robert's kernel. 😠 A pitty, for I would have speared a lot of time.

All the Best
Hajo

---
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... http://hajos-kontrapunkte.blogspot.com/

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Robert Nelson

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Mar 13, 2014, 6:51:53 PM3/13/14
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On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 5:30 PM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
> On Thursday, March 6, 2014 8:58:32 AM UTC-7, Jason Kridner wrote:
>>
>> If you have a BeagleBone Black and are able to try out this image, it
>> might be good to propose fixing any short-falls you see in what is provided
>> on the image.
>
>
> Every time I boot, or logout of LXDE, I get a touchscreen calibration
> program that runs. It says 'Touchscreen calibration for Logitech USB
> Keyboard' (I think it sometimes says Mouse, but I could be mistaken). I am
> running with a HDMI monitor and a USB keyboard and mouse connected to an
> external powered hub. I have no touchscreen to calibrate and this wastes
> about 15 seconds on each logout. What starts this program, and how do I
> disable it?

That's interesting, the lcd/touchscreen detect script is pretty basic,
i'll have to add whitelist for some devices.

Can you pastebin this file for me:

/var/log/xinput_calibrator.pointercal.log

and the output of "xinput" you will have to run it from x11, no serial/ssh..


> Also, the .profile file in the /home/debian directory is not being executed.
> I don't have a .bash_profile or .bash_login file to prevent it from being
> loaded. I noticed the default shell is dash rather than bash, at least
> /bin/sh is linked to /bin/dash, but the dash man page says it should read
> commands from .profile as well. When I tried the chsh command it says the
> default login shell is /bin/bash which should definitely read from .profile.
>
> I can tell that .profile is not being executed because I have a personal bin
> directory at /home/debian/bin. This directory should be added to the PATH by
> the .profile, but that isn't happening. I have also set a new environment
> variable in my .profile and it does not appear in the output of the env
> command. Any ideas why my .profile is not executing?

Yeah,

export PATH=$PATH:~/bin

in ~/.profile is all you should need..

Robert Nelson

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Mar 13, 2014, 6:59:02 PM3/13/14
to Beagle Board, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 5:51 PM, Robert Nelson <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 5:30 PM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
>> On Thursday, March 6, 2014 8:58:32 AM UTC-7, Jason Kridner wrote:
>>>
>>> If you have a BeagleBone Black and are able to try out this image, it
>>> might be good to propose fixing any short-falls you see in what is provided
>>> on the image.
>>
>>
>> Every time I boot, or logout of LXDE, I get a touchscreen calibration
>> program that runs. It says 'Touchscreen calibration for Logitech USB
>> Keyboard' (I think it sometimes says Mouse, but I could be mistaken). I am
>> running with a HDMI monitor and a USB keyboard and mouse connected to an
>> external powered hub. I have no touchscreen to calibrate and this wastes
>> about 15 seconds on each logout. What starts this program, and how do I
>> disable it?

PS: what model/etc is it? lsusb? Encase I need to go pick one up.

iustini...@gmail.com

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Mar 14, 2014, 7:46:05 AM3/14/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com
Robert, thanks for your work.

Is there a guide somewhere to build or a way to download a absolute minimal image. Something with only ssh, apt and full hardware initialization on it and nothing else. That would be a good base for couple of headless projects I am thinking about.

When I am talking about HW initialization I am only thinking about network and hwrng

Right now I am using this:

http://rcn-ee.net/deb/flasher/wheezy/BBB-eMMC-flasher-debian-7.4-2014-02-16-2gb.img.xz

and I will continue to use it as it is. But if you plan to stop developing those images I need to start thinking about another way to get a headless emmc debian image working.

Robert Nelson

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Mar 14, 2014, 8:57:57 AM3/14/14
to Beagle Board, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com
On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 6:46 AM, <iustini...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Robert, thanks for your work.
>
> Is there a guide somewhere to build or a way to download a absolute minimal
> image. Something with only ssh, apt and full hardware initialization on it
> and nothing else. That would be a good base for couple of headless projects
> I am thinking about.
>
> When I am talking about HW initialization I am only thinking about network
> and hwrng
>
> Right now I am using this:
>
> http://rcn-ee.net/deb/flasher/wheezy/BBB-eMMC-flasher-debian-7.4-2014-02-16-2gb.img.xz
>
> and I will continue to use it as it is. But if you plan to stop developing
> those images I need to start thinking about another way to get a headless
> emmc debian image working.

No worries, I have no plans to discontinue those monthly "minimal"
images. I have a lot of users using them. Plus they support older
boards like the beagle.

Steve French of Volt Vision

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Mar 14, 2014, 10:00:03 AM3/14/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
Robert,
Just my $0.02 about *where* info should be stored:   I completely agree about Dennis' "Wild West" comment.  When I first started with the BBB back in Sep2013 all 5 of the various websites that Dennis referenced seemed to contradict each other.  The "official" image was outdated and the most recent images were hidden away and you almost needed a "secret knock" to find them.  I completely understand that everything has been in a massive state of flux, especially since all of the changes with the way Device Tree was handled, etc, etc.  It seems to me, though, that out of the 5 websites that Dennis referenced, perhaps 4 of them should say "Things are in a state of massive flux right now.... Instead of us updating 5 websites all the time, Please check this *one* website for the most up-to-date info."  Then on the *1* website which is "continuously updated" it could say:  Here is the most recent "stable" official image and here is the most recent "development" official image.  It is strange having 5 different websites to have to check when you are a Newbie...and then Gerald says "why didnt you check 'the' website".

Thx!  I respect and appreciate all the work you do!!  These are challenging times!
-frenchy

--
Respectfully,
Steve French
800.664.7256.office
814.730.0003.cell

President, Volt Vision
www.voltvision.com



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Robert Nelson

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Mar 14, 2014, 10:54:08 AM3/14/14
to Beagle Board
On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 9:00 AM, Steve French of Volt Vision
<voltv...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Robert,
> Just my $0.02 about *where* info should be stored: I completely agree
> about Dennis' "Wild West" comment. When I first started with the BBB back
> in Sep2013 all 5 of the various websites that Dennis referenced seemed to
> contradict each other. The "official" image was outdated and the most
> recent images were hidden away and you almost needed a "secret knock" to
> find them. I completely understand that everything has been in a massive
> state of flux, especially since all of the changes with the way Device Tree
> was handled, etc, etc. It seems to me, though, that out of the 5 websites
> that Dennis referenced, perhaps 4 of them should say "Things are in a state
> of massive flux right now.... Instead of us updating 5 websites all the
> time, Please check this *one* website for the most up-to-date info." Then
> on the *1* website which is "continuously updated" it could say: Here is
> the most recent "stable" official image and here is the most recent
> "development" official image. It is strange having 5 different websites to
> have to check when you are a Newbie...and then Gerald says "why didnt you
> check 'the' website".
>
> Thx! I respect and appreciate all the work you do!! These are challenging
> times!
> -frenchy

Hi Steve,

I've started an offical page at:

http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack_Debian

My plan is to hint at this page in both the serial/dvi terminal along
with an ssh message on the default image.

I'll try to get the "more info" links from here
http://beagleboard.org/latest-images

also linked to that page.

Dennis Cote

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Mar 14, 2014, 10:55:57 AM3/14/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com
On Thursday, March 13, 2014 4:51:53 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
Can you pastebin this file for me:

/var/log/xinput_calibrator.pointercal.log

and the output of "xinput" you will have to run it from x11, no serial/ssh..


Here you go:

xinput_calibrator.log pastebin.com/EZ4uSu4W

 
Yeah,

export PATH=$PATH:~/bin

in ~/.profile is all you should need..

You are missing my point. These commands are already in the default .profile created for the debian user. See the pastebin.com/kjDXbEpJ for a copy of mine. I added the TZ environment variable at the end. 

ls ~ shows my bin directory exists
env | grep HOME shows the HOME variable as /home/debian
env | grep PATH shows the PATH as /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

The .profile should be adding /home/debian/bin to the path, but it is not. It is also not adding the TZ variable to the environment.

BTW, we could probably remove the two games directories from the default PATH as well. I don't think many users will be using BBB for gaming.

Dennis Cote

Mike

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Mar 14, 2014, 11:21:31 AM3/14/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
On 03/14/2014 10:55 AM, Dennis Cote wrote:
>
> You are missing my point. These commands are already in the default
> .profile created for the debian user. See the pastebin.com/kjDXbEpJ
> for a copy of mine. I added the TZ environment variable at the end.
>
> ls ~ shows my bin directory exists
> env | grep HOME shows the HOME variable as /home/debian
> env | grep PATH shows the PATH as
> /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
>
> The .profile should be adding /home/debian/bin to the path, but it is
> not. It is also not adding the TZ variable to the environment.

Is this shell running within X? If so .profile isn't sourced as it's
not run as login shell. I don't quite follow why you want to set the TZ
variable from the user environment either. It's all handled at a system
level by default.

No need to set the variable then export it either, just do it all in one go.

export TZ="Whatever"

Also less typing to just "echo" variables....

echo $HOME $PATH

Really no need for env and grep.

Mike

Dennis Cote

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Mar 14, 2014, 11:26:50 AM3/14/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
On Friday, March 14, 2014 8:54:08 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
I've started an offical page at:

http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack_Debian


Hi Robert,

I'm sorry to nitpick, but this new "official" page is wrong right out of the gate. 

It says it is "about running an ARM EABI Debian" distribution. The Debian page at https://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort says this is different than the newer armhf ABI which I believe is the basis for your images. Getting this kind of basic stuff correct is important.

Also, the description of how to set the timezone to your local timezone so that the clock displays local wall clock time is terse to point of extreme. It is not at all clear what the listed commands do, or why you might want to use them.

Dennis Cote
 

Robert Nelson

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Mar 14, 2014, 11:27:49 AM3/14/14
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On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 9:55 AM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
> On Thursday, March 13, 2014 4:51:53 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
>>
>> Can you pastebin this file for me:
>>
>> /var/log/xinput_calibrator.pointercal.log
>>
>> and the output of "xinput" you will have to run it from x11, no
>> serial/ssh..
>>
>
> Here you go:
>
> xinput_calibrator.log pastebin.com/EZ4uSu4W
> xinput.txt pastebin.com/ZBDXGkt3
> lsusb.txt pastebin.com/0UthnPqZ


I don't see anything obvious, so I ordered it up..

>> Yeah,
>>
>> export PATH=$PATH:~/bin
>>
>> in ~/.profile is all you should need..
>
>
> You are missing my point. These commands are already in the default .profile
> created for the debian user. See the pastebin.com/kjDXbEpJ for a copy of
> mine. I added the TZ environment variable at the end.
>
> ls ~ shows my bin directory exists
> env | grep HOME shows the HOME variable as /home/debian
> env | grep PATH shows the PATH as
> /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games
>
> The .profile should be adding /home/debian/bin to the path, but it is not.

It works here:

debian@beaglebone:~/bin$ nano simple.c
debian@beaglebone:~/bin$ gcc -Wall simple.c -o simple
debian@beaglebone:~/bin$ cd ..
debian@beaglebone:~$ which simple
/home/debian/bin/simple
debian@beaglebone:~$ simple
Simple Program

One thing i can do is just to add the directory by default in the image.

debian@beaglebone:~$ echo $PATH
/home/debian/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

> It is also not adding the TZ variable to the environment.

Just use:

dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

or:

echo "Europe/Zurich" > /etc/timezone
dpkg-reconfigure -f noninteractive tzdata


> BTW, we could probably remove the two games directories from the default
> PATH as well. I don't think many users will be using BBB for gaming.

The default /etc/profile sets the gaming directories up by default. So
i opted to just leave them.

/usr/local/games:/usr/games

The only thing i've done there, is to tweak the path to also include
the root "sbin" directories too for the normal user..

Robert Nelson

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Mar 14, 2014, 11:34:02 AM3/14/14
to Beagle Board
On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 10:26 AM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
> On Friday, March 14, 2014 8:54:08 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
>>
>> I've started an offical page at:
>>
>> http://elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoneBlack_Debian
>>
>
> Hi Robert,
>
> I'm sorry to nitpick, but this new "official" page is wrong right out of the
> gate.

No problem, i just copied it from my other Debian page. ;)

>
> It says it is "about running an ARM EABI Debian" distribution. The Debian
> page at https://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort says this is different than the
> newer armhf ABI which I believe is the basis for your images. Getting this
> kind of basic stuff correct is important.

Well, technically "armhf" is still "EABI", but over "armel" it has
hard floating point enabled by default.

> Also, the description of how to set the timezone to your local timezone so
> that the clock displays local wall clock time is terse to point of extreme.
> It is not at all clear what the listed commands do, or why you might want to
> use them.

I'll fix those up, I'm just merging/pushing all my notes/fixes/etc
from yesterday right now. ;)

Dennis Cote

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Mar 14, 2014, 11:44:59 AM3/14/14
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On Friday, March 14, 2014 9:21:31 AM UTC-6, Mike Bell wrote:
Is this shell running within X?  If so .profile isn't sourced as it's
not run as login shell.  

Ah ha... there is the nugget of truth I was looking for. Yes, this is the LXTerminal under LXDE. 

I checked and the .profile *is* executed for my serial console.

So how does one get the same path for the LXTerminal as you get using a serial terminal? Also, is an ssh terminal a login shell, or is like the X terminal?
 
I don't quite follow why you want to set the TZ
variable from the user environment either.  It's all handled at a system
level by default. 
No need to set the variable then export it either, just do it all in one go.

export TZ="Whatever"

I know that now, but yesterday when I was trying to get the timezone set correctly I ran the tzselect command (which seemed logical). This is the output of that command:

The following information has been given:

Canada
Mountain Time - Alberta, east British Columbia & west Saskatchewan

Therefore TZ='America/Edmonton' will be used.
Local time is now:Fri Mar 14 09:31:43 MDT 2014.
Universal Time is now:Fri Mar 14 15:31:43 UTC 2014.
Is the above information OK?
1) Yes
2) No
#? 1

You can make this change permanent for yourself by appending the line
TZ='America/Edmonton'; export TZ
to the file '.profile' in your home directory; then log out and log in again.

Here is that TZ value again, this time on standard output so that you
can use the /usr/bin/tzselect command in shell scripts:
America/Edmonton

So I did as it suggested. I added this line to my .profile and logged out and in. This again seemed logical. I left it in as a simple test of whether or not my .profile was executed. I will remove it now.
 

Also less typing to just "echo" variables....

echo $HOME $PATH

Really no need for env and grep.

Yes, thanks for the tip. I started by using env to dump my entire environment, and then just progressed to using grep to filter the dump, while looking into why the .profile wasn't being executed.  

Thanks again for the info.

Dennis Cote

Robert Nelson

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Mar 14, 2014, 11:56:45 AM3/14/14
to Beagle Board, belly...@gmail.com
On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 10:44 AM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
> On Friday, March 14, 2014 9:21:31 AM UTC-6, Mike Bell wrote:
>>
>> Is this shell running within X? If so .profile isn't sourced as it's
>> not run as login shell.
>
>
> Ah ha... there is the nugget of truth I was looking for. Yes, this is the
> LXTerminal under LXDE.
>
> I checked and the .profile *is* executed for my serial console.
>
> So how does one get the same path for the LXTerminal as you get using a
> serial terminal? Also, is an ssh terminal a login shell, or is like the X
> terminal?

Ahh, I've been doing it over serial/ssh..

For lxterminal (which doesn't reference .profile according to lots of
bug reports). It works if i add:

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

into .bashrc

If there is no objections i'll probably set that up by default..

Robert Nelson

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Mar 14, 2014, 12:25:42 PM3/14/14
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On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 9:55 AM, Dennis Cote <den...@harding.ca> wrote:
> On Thursday, March 13, 2014 4:51:53 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
>>
>> Can you pastebin this file for me:
>>
>> /var/log/xinput_calibrator.pointercal.log
>>
>> and the output of "xinput" you will have to run it from x11, no
>> serial/ssh..
>>
>
> Here you go:
>
> xinput_calibrator.log pastebin.com/EZ4uSu4W
> xinput.txt pastebin.com/ZBDXGkt3
> lsusb.txt pastebin.com/0UthnPqZ

btw, as a workaround till i can debug it with the same hardware, just run:

sudo sed -i -e 's:display-setup-script=:#display-setup-script:g'
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

And it'll stop displaying the calibrator on bootup.

Dennis Cote

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Mar 14, 2014, 1:21:21 PM3/14/14
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On Friday, March 14, 2014 9:56:45 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
It works if i add:

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

into .bashrc

If there is no objections i'll probably set that up by default..


Will this add the user's bin directory to the path twice when using a serial console since .bashrc is sourced from the existing .profile?

Dennis Cote 

Robert Nelson

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Mar 14, 2014, 1:53:15 PM3/14/14
to Beagle Board, Mike Bell
Yeap it does..

debian@beaglebone:~$ echo $PATH
/home/debian/bin:/home/debian/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

What gets sourced first? i can patch it to check..

Dennis Cote

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Mar 14, 2014, 2:56:05 PM3/14/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com, Mike Bell
On Friday, March 14, 2014 11:53:15 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
Yeap it does..

debian@beaglebone:~$ echo $PATH
/home/debian/bin:/home/debian/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games

What gets sourced first? i can patch it to check..


I moved that section from my .profile to .bashrc since .profile will source .bashrc if it exists. So a login shell will source .profile, which will source .bashrc and add the path. A non login shell will source .bashrc directly and add the path. This seems to work for me.

I'm not sure what happens for script that use #!/bin/sh since that runs dash instead of bash. The dash docs say it sources .profile on login shells so that should be OK, but for non login shells it says it looks in the ENV environment variable for the name of a file to execute. There is no such variable defined currently so it does nothing. 

Perhaps these commands should be put in a .shinit file and then set ENV=$HOME/.shint in the .profile file to take card of setting it for login shells, and have the .bashrc source this .shinit file for non login shells.

Dennis Cote

 

Dennis Cote

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Mar 14, 2014, 3:04:24 PM3/14/14
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On Friday, March 14, 2014 10:25:42 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
btw, as a workaround till i can debug it with the same hardware, just run:

sudo sed -i -e 's:display-setup-script=:#display-setup-script:g'
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

And it'll stop displaying the calibrator on bootup.

FYI, commenting out the display-setup-script line does not take effect until after you reboot.

I no longer have the calibration screen on startup or logout.

Thanks.

Dennis Cote  

Robert Nelson

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Mar 14, 2014, 4:08:00 PM3/14/14
to Beagle Board, Mike Bell
Here is a better fix:

sudo sed -i -e 's:Exec=lxterminal:Exec=lxterminal -l -e bash:g'
/usr/share/applications/lxterminal.desktop

William Hermans

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Mar 14, 2014, 4:56:50 PM3/14/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
Robert, your timezone is fine for me. I am actually AZ time myself, but really simple to change via dpkg-reconfigure tzdata.

Also, as for how to change some default stuff, perhaps have a web page ( html file, or maybe even a node.js thing to make it more dynamic ? )

Dennis, just so you know, you should be able to google "debian" + whatever keyword you need to know something about to find an answer. We're talking basic Linux / Debian stuff here. For example.

google -> howto change debian timezone, and you will very likely find what i asked about last night "dpkg-reconfigure tzdata".

Anyway, dont feel as though I am putting you down by saying  this. quite the contrary actually. As I have been using Debian since  the 90's and have to google many things. Especially now considering I really want to look into using systemmd.


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William Hermans

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Mar 14, 2014, 5:12:08 PM3/14/14
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Sorry, I felt i was not clear in my last post . . .


Also, as for how to change some default stuff, perhaps have a web page ( html file, or maybe even a node.js thing to make it more dynamic ? )

What I mean by the above, is have an information web page on how to do various things, like how to set time zone etc. Perhaps as part of the getting started page thats already on the BBB.

Even though I think Debian is one of the better distro's out there because of the fact you can simply google the answer to your questions( just one aspect actually ) I feel that having a web page linked to from the getting started page on how to change all teh default basic stuff would be super helpful for new users.

Dennis Cote

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Mar 14, 2014, 5:40:08 PM3/14/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com, Mike Bell
On Friday, March 14, 2014 2:08:00 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
Here is a better fix:

sudo sed -i -e 's:Exec=lxterminal:Exec=lxterminal -l -e bash:g'
/usr/share/applications/lxterminal.desktop

As far as I can tell by using ps - p $$, lxterminal is already running bash, so adding -e bash shouldn't change anything. Adding the -l make it a login shell, so it sources /etc/profile and then .profile, which sources .bashrc if it exists. 

Without this change lxterminal runs bash as a non login shell so it sources /etc/bash.bashrc and then .bashrc instead. The /etc/bash.bashrc file setups the command prompt.

What I don't understand is why an lxterminal command with no options starts a bash shell, but an lxterminal -l command starts a /bin/sh shell which is actually a dash shell. You end up with no command prompt because it doesn't run /etc/bash.bashrc. There are probably other differences. This is why you added the -e bash option. 

Anyway this does seem like a better fix, though anything that runs /bin/sh will still have a different PATH without the user bin directory.

Dennis Cote  

 

William Hermans

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Mar 14, 2014, 5:46:48 PM3/14/14
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dpkg-reconfigure dash -> select no.


--

Dennis Cote

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Mar 14, 2014, 6:16:17 PM3/14/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
On Friday, March 14, 2014 2:56:50 PM UTC-6, William Hermans wrote:
Dennis, just so you know, you should be able to google "debian" + whatever keyword you need to know something about to find an answer. We're talking basic Linux / Debian stuff here. For example.

google -> howto change debian timezone, and you will very likely find what i asked about last night "dpkg-reconfigure tzdata".


I did that and ended up at http://www.debian-administration.org/article/213/Changing_the_timezone_of_your_Debian_system which suggested the tzselect command (which in turn suggested adding a TZ environment variable, which in turn led to me seeing that my .profile wasn't being executed, etc). 

I also saw the page at https://wiki.debian.org/TimeZoneChanges but the text at the top of that page and the titles of the other sections made it seem more about checking and adapting the system to changes in the dates of daylight saving etc. I just wanted to set my timezone. The section where "dpkg-reconfigure tzdata" is mentioned has the title "Check Configured Timezone", and the text of the command itself didn't lead me to conclude it would change my timezone. Had I read in more detail I would have seem what it did, but I was skimming for something that said "this is how to change your timezone" as on the page above. 
 
Anyway, dont feel as though I am putting you down by saying  this. quite the contrary actually.

No problem, no offence taken. I just want to point out that not all google searches (or searchers) lead to the best answer.
 
Dennis Cote

William Hermans

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Mar 15, 2014, 1:42:11 AM3/15/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com
I have very seldom run into a situation where google did not give me a correct answer. Sometimes the first hit is not always right / succinct either. It takes experience googling to know what to look for, and this does not always work either.

Anyway, answers linked on debian.org, and superuser are typically succinct and correct. Also, as I had not reconfigured time zone, and dash before, or in a while i did google searches on these myself not but a few months ago.

Regardless, this is all part of the learning process for everyone.


--

Robert Nelson

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Mar 20, 2014, 10:49:22 AM3/20/14
to Beagle Board, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com, den...@harding.ca
>> Here you go:
>>
>> xinput_calibrator.log pastebin.com/EZ4uSu4W
>> xinput.txt pastebin.com/ZBDXGkt3
>> lsusb.txt pastebin.com/0UthnPqZ

Okay, quick update on this as i have the same K120 keyboard. I'm
seeing this same issue on 3.8/3.13/3.14 so I just blacklisted this
device.

Just run:

cd /opt/scripts
git pull

to update the xinput script..

Dennis Cote

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Mar 20, 2014, 1:16:24 PM3/20/14
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On Thursday, March 20, 2014 8:49:22 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
Okay, quick update on this as i have the same K120 keyboard.  I'm
seeing this same issue on 3.8/3.13/3.14 so I just blacklisted this
device.

Just run:

cd /opt/scripts
git pull

to update the xinput script.. 

Robert,

I did this update and then undid the workaround (i.e. I uncommented the display-setup-script line in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf). 

Now I no longer get the calibration screen on startup and logout of LXDE, however I lose my mouse pointer when I logout. The mouse pointer works on reboot, but if I logout of LXDE I have no visible pointer on the login screen or in LXDE after I log back in. The mouse does work and I can see where it is because some items like the LXDE menu icons highlight when I hover the mouse over them, but there is no onscreen pointer visible. Clicking the mouse buttons work as expected when I can figure out where it is pointing.

Is there anything else I can do to help pinpoint the problem?

Robert Nelson

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Mar 20, 2014, 1:29:10 PM3/20/14
to Beagle Board, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com, Dennis Cote
Previously we were making the mouse pointer viable by a custom xorg.conf.

However it works better if you add it via xset/xsetroot:

root@beaglebone:~# cat /home/debian/.xsessionrc
#!/bin/sh

xset -dpms
xset s off
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr

and just remove the [Option "SWCursor" "true"] line
from /etc/X11/xorg.conf

So for me, right now the mouse cursor works between logout/logins.

Dennis Cote

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Mar 20, 2014, 1:47:15 PM3/20/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com, Dennis Cote
On Thursday, March 20, 2014 11:29:10 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
However it works better if you add it via xset/xsetroot:

root@beaglebone:~# cat /home/debian/.xsessionrc
#!/bin/sh

xset -dpms
xset s off
xsetroot -cursor_name left_ptr

and just remove the  [Option          "SWCursor"      "true"] line
from /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Robert,

My .xsessionrc file looks identical to yours, and I did not have "SWCursor" anywhere in my xorg.conf file, so there was nothing to remove.

My mouse pointer definitely becomes invisible when I logout.

Any other ideas?

Robert Nelson

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Mar 20, 2014, 1:57:11 PM3/20/14
to Beagle Board, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com, Dennis Cote
okay, so when i switch back to v3.8, i see this now too.. Weird, as
v3.13.x it works. Might just have to go back to the xorg.conf
workaround.

Dennis Cote

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Mar 20, 2014, 2:00:29 PM3/20/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com, Dennis Cote
On Thursday, March 20, 2014 11:47:15 AM UTC-6, Dennis Cote wrote:
My mouse pointer definitely becomes invisible when I logout.

Any other ideas?

Robert,

I have done some more testing. I have discovered that I do have a mouse pointer on the login screen after the first logout after a reboot, and I have a mouse pointer when I log in again. If I log out again, I have no visible mouse pointer on the login screen, and no mouse pointer after I log back in. It remains the same on subsequent logout/logins until I reboot again. Then I can logout and back in one more time before I lose my mouse pointer.

Any ideas?

Dennis Cote

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Mar 20, 2014, 2:57:28 PM3/20/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com, Dennis Cote
On Thursday, March 20, 2014 11:57:11 AM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
Might just have to go back to the xorg.conf
workaround.

Robert,

More test results. 

I googled and found many references to adding 'Option "HWCursor" "off"' to the device section of xorg.conf as a fix for the disappearing mouse cursor issue in Debian/Ubuntu/Mint etc. These all seemed to be for PC based systems thought. I tried it and it did not work. I lost my mouse cursor on every logout.

I added the line you suggested to remove earlier 'Option "SWCursor" "true"' to the device section of my xorg.conf. This appears to have fixed the problem. I can logout and back in many times in a row, and haven't lost my mouse cursor since.

HTH
Dennis Cote

Robert Nelson

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Mar 20, 2014, 3:23:24 PM3/20/14
to Beagle Board, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com, Dennis Cote
OH Fun! ;)

I've had reports that xorg.conf change was causing lockup's when
moving icons around, hence we changed it to the .xsessonrc workaround
in the last week.

Dennis Cote

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Mar 20, 2014, 6:16:34 PM3/20/14
to beagl...@googlegroups.com, beaglebo...@googlegroups.com, Dennis Cote
On Thursday, March 20, 2014 1:23:24 PM UTC-6, RobertCNelson wrote:
OH Fun! ;)

I've had reports that xorg.conf change was causing lockup's when
moving icons around, hence we changed it to the .xsessonrc workaround
in the last week.

Robert,

I have just noticed now that my BBB is no longer blanking the HDMI output after a period of inactivity. 

Prior to these changes the display would blank after some period of inactivity, and I would have to move my mouse to get it to start sending video again. It has been sitting unused for an hour or more now (there is an ssh session open), and it has not blanked the screen.  

I googled Debian screen blanking and discovered what I think your .xsessionrc commands are doing.

xset s off         # don't activate screensaver
xset -dpms         # disable DPMS (Energy Star) features.
xset s noblank     # don't blank the video device
I suspect you have disabled the DPMS features that were shutting down the HDMI video output. 

I don't need a screen saver, but I would like the video to blank after a while. So I executed an xset +dpms command and then an xset q to check the current settings and verify that DPMS was enabled. With DPMS enabled I waited for 600 seconds (10 minutes), and my display blanked as I wanted.

I see that many people are searching for a way to disable screen blanking, so I think this is one of those things that should be added to your FAQ for simple ways to accomplish basic setup changes. I think the display should blank by default out of the box both for the energy savings (135,000 BBB boards could be preventing their monitors from going to low power mode) and to provide a similar experience to what one gets using a Mac or PC. The FAQ should explain how to change it, both to blank or not blank.

Is there any other reason you are disabling DPMS?

Ramon Mendes

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Mar 23, 2014, 11:36:30 PM3/23/14
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How can I make the microSD image to not copy the image to the eMMC of my Beaglebone Black?

That is, by default, when I insert the SD card with this Debian image, and then power the BBB, it will automatically start flashing the Debian image to the BBB internal disk (eMMC). I notice it because after some time the 4 leds stay lit, meaning it has completed the process.
I don't want it to happen because I want to use Debian directly from the bootable SD card, and keep the eMMC intact.

(probably I just need to delete the script that flashes the image to the eMMC, but where is it?)


Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014 19h51min19s UTC-3, Jason Kridner escreveu:
The latest BeagleBone Debian images are now posted at: http://beagleboard.org/latest-images/

If you've upgraded the firmware on your BeagleBone or BeagleBone Black in the past, the experience will be quite similar, but you might find the eMMC flashing times a bit faster (~15 minutes rather than ~45 minutes) due to less post-installation processing. Using the 2GB uSD card image also flashes a bit faster and can be resized to whatever your uSD card size is using some scripts under /opt/scripts/tools.

Many, many thanks to Robert Nelson, Rob Rittman, Dave Anders, Cody Lacey, the Cloud9 IDE team and so many others in getting us this far.

Please take the time to give a detailed look over this image and report any issues to the bug tracker on elinux.org:
http://bugs.elinux.org/projects/debian-image-releases

While plugged in over USB, you'll see the familiar BEAGLE_BONE drive with START.htm to tell you how to get the drivers configured if you haven't already done so:

Inline image 2


Clicking the link or visiting http://192.168.7.2, you'll see the familiar on-board served documentation:

Inline image 1

I've introduced a few bugs to the documentation (http://github.com/beaglebone/bone101 and http://beagleboard.github.io/bone101), so expect to find a lot of issues there. Patches are welcome as are notes in the bug tracker to make sure I don't miss dotting any i's or crossing any t's. This is your chance to try to get some documentation into the system you'd like to see. I felt it was pretty safe to save the documentation as an in-beta item because it shouldn't impact functionality.

One of the biggest new features you'll see is when you click on the Cloud9 IDE link:

Inline image 3

This is a pre-open-source-beta-only release of version 3 of their IDE. Down at the bottom of the Cloud9 IDE you'll see a new terminal window that runs a full 'tmux' session. You can open up a bunch of these and it makes logging into the board and executing command-line operations *super* simple.

Cloud9 IDE version 3 now includes support for Python and the Adafruit_BBIO library is included in these Debian images. That means you can simply paste in your Python code and hit the "run" button, without any additional download. I checked this out myself by doing a quick LED blink using the Adafruit tutorial (http://learn.adafruit.com/blinking-an-led-with-beaglebone-black/writing-a-program):

Inline image 4

You should also note that the /var/lib/cloud9 directory now contains a git clone of that bone101 repo (http://github.com/beagleboard/bone101), so you can start using the Cloud9 IDE to edit the content live. What I recommend is creating your own fork of the repo and sending me pull requests of any changes you'd like to see.

You can also edit C/C++ code in the Cloud9 IDE, but no 'builder' or 'runner' plug-ins are provided. You will, however, find the Userspace-Arduino (http://elinux.org/Userspace_Arduino) code in /opt/source/Userspace-Arduino. Here's a quick little exercise you can do to blink LED0:

root@beaglebone# cd /opt/source/Userspace-Arduino/arduino-makefile/examples/Blink
root@beaglebone# perl -i -pe 's/13/14/g' Blink.ino
root@beaglebone# make
root@beaglebone# ./build-userspace/Blink.elf

For more advanced C/C++ developers, future releases should include https://github.com/jackmitch/libsoc.

Those familiar with Linux will also note that the init system is 'systemd', which has been helpful in providing reasonable boot times. If you are looking for the journal, you can explore it using 'systemd-journalctl'.

I use a Mac and despite the latest version of HoRNDIS fixing issues with Internet Connection Sharing, getting on the WIFI at home makes getting my BeagleBones on the network much easier, further making grabbing new packages with 'sudo apt-get install' much simpler. Drivers and firmware for many common USB WiFi dongles are included, so be sure to report any that you find missing. These latest images include the drivers for the popular UWN200 adapters provided by Logic Supply. To test it out myself, I uncommented and edited the wlan0 entry in /etc/network/interfaces (including replacing wlan0 with ra0), shutdown, plugged in the adapter and powered up the board again. I'm seeing the issue "rt28xx_open return fail!", but I'm sure this is something we can fix in a few days and provide an updated image. I removed that adapter and plugged in an adapter I bought from Adafruit (and switched ra0 back to wlan0) and got the issue "rtl8192cu:_rtl92cu_init_power_on():<0-0> Failed to polling REG_APS_FSMCO[APFM_ONMAC] done!". Finally, I plugged in a TL-WN822N adapter I bought from Amazon and BINGO---WiFi!!! Anyway, getting reports on what adapters work and don't work would be really helpful at this point as we'll be trying to get a very full set of WiFi drivers included.

This is just a quick intro to some of the experience and what we are focused on fine tuning. Please take the time to check it out and let us know about your experience. It should be known that Koen has continued to advance the state of the Angstrom Distributions images he provides and those continue to serve as a more flexible base for building truly custom Linux distributions needed by many embedded systems developers. However, as our user base has grown, getting a Debian image that feels a bit more familiar to Linux novices is something for which I've heard tremendous demand. If feedback from the community is positive, there will be a switch as to what distribution comes loaded in the eMMC flash on the boards. I hope you enjoy it!



Robert Nelson

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Mar 23, 2014, 11:46:36 PM3/23/14
to Beagle Board


On Mar 23, 2014 10:36 PM, "Ramon Mendes" <midiw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> How can I make the microSD image to not copy the image to the eMMC of my Beaglebone Black?
>
> That is, by default, when I insert the SD card with this Debian image, and then power the BBB, it will automatically start flashing the Debian image to the BBB internal disk (eMMC). I notice it because after some time the 4 leds stay lit, meaning it has completed the process.
> I don't want it to happen because I want to use Debian directly from the bootable SD card, and keep the eMMC intact.
>
> (probably I just need to delete the script that flashes the image to the eMMC, but where is it?)

That's why there are two separate downloads. To convert the flasher image to not flash. Just remove the flash-emmc text file from the fat partition.

>
>
> Em quarta-feira, 5 de março de 2014 19h51min19s UTC-3, Jason Kridner escreveu:
>>
>> The latest BeagleBone Debian images are now posted at: http://beagleboard.org/latest-images/
>>
>> If you've upgraded the firmware on your BeagleBone or BeagleBone Black in the past, the experience will be quite similar, but you might find the eMMC flashing times a bit faster (~15 minutes rather than ~45 minutes) due to less post-installation processing. Using the 2GB uSD card image also flashes a bit faster and can be resized to whatever your uSD card size is using some scripts under /opt/scripts/tools.
>>
>> Many, many thanks to Robert Nelson, Rob Rittman, Dave Anders, Cody Lacey, the Cloud9 IDE team and so many others in getting us this far.
>>
>> Please take the time to give a detailed look over this image and report any issues to the bug tracker on elinux.org:
>> http://bugs.elinux.org/projects/debian-image-releases
>>
>> While plugged in over USB, you'll see the familiar BEAGLE_BONE drive with START.htm to tell you how to get the drivers configured if you haven't already done so:
>>
>>
>>
>>

>> Clicking the link or visiting http://192.168.7.2, you'll see the familiar on-board served documentation:
>>
>>
>>

>> I've introduced a few bugs to the documentation (http://github.com/beaglebone/bone101 and http://beagleboard.github.io/bone101), so expect to find a lot of issues there. Patches are welcome as are notes in the bug tracker to make sure I don't miss dotting any i's or crossing any t's. This is your chance to try to get some documentation into the system you'd like to see. I felt it was pretty safe to save the documentation as an in-beta item because it shouldn't impact functionality.
>>
>> One of the biggest new features you'll see is when you click on the Cloud9 IDE link:
>>
>>
>>

>> This is a pre-open-source-beta-only release of version 3 of their IDE. Down at the bottom of the Cloud9 IDE you'll see a new terminal window that runs a full 'tmux' session. You can open up a bunch of these and it makes logging into the board and executing command-line operations *super* simple.
>>
>> Cloud9 IDE version 3 now includes support for Python and the Adafruit_BBIO library is included in these Debian images. That means you can simply paste in your Python code and hit the "run" button, without any additional download. I checked this out myself by doing a quick LED blink using the Adafruit tutorial (http://learn.adafruit.com/blinking-an-led-with-beaglebone-black/writing-a-program):
>>
>>
>>

>> You should also note that the /var/lib/cloud9 directory now contains a git clone of that bone101 repo (http://github.com/beagleboard/bone101), so you can start using the Cloud9 IDE to edit the content live. What I recommend is creating your own fork of the repo and sending me pull requests of any changes you'd like to see.
>>
>> You can also edit C/C++ code in the Cloud9 IDE, but no 'builder' or 'runner' plug-ins are provided. You will, however, find the Userspace-Arduino (http://elinux.org/Userspace_Arduino) code in /opt/source/Userspace-Arduino. Here's a quick little exercise you can do to blink LED0:
>>
>> root@beaglebone# cd /opt/source/Userspace-Arduino/arduino-makefile/examples/Blink
>> root@beaglebone# perl -i -pe 's/13/14/g' Blink.ino
>> root@beaglebone# make
>> root@beaglebone# ./build-userspace/Blink.elf
>>
>> For more advanced C/C++ developers, future releases should include https://github.com/jackmitch/libsoc.
>>
>> Those familiar with Linux will also note that the init system is 'systemd', which has been helpful in providing reasonable boot times. If you are looking for the journal, you can explore it using 'systemd-journalctl'.
>>
>> I use a Mac and despite the latest version of HoRNDIS fixing issues with Internet Connection Sharing, getting on the WIFI at home makes getting my BeagleBones on the network much easier, further making grabbing new packages with 'sudo apt-get install' much simpler. Drivers and firmware for many common USB WiFi dongles are included, so be sure to report any that you find missing. These latest images include the drivers for the popular UWN200 adapters provided by Logic Supply. To test it out myself, I uncommented and edited the wlan0 entry in /etc/network/interfaces (including replacing wlan0 with ra0), shutdown, plugged in the adapter and powered up the board again. I'm seeing the issue "rt28xx_open return fail!", but I'm sure this is something we can fix in a few days and provide an updated image. I removed that adapter and plugged in an adapter I bought from Adafruit (and switched ra0 back to wlan0) and got the issue "rtl8192cu:_rtl92cu_init_power_on():<0-0> Failed to polling REG_APS_FSMCO[APFM_ONMAC] done!". Finally, I plugged in a TL-WN822N adapter I bought from Amazon and BINGO---WiFi!!! Anyway, getting reports on what adapters work and don't work would be really helpful at this point as we'll be trying to get a very full set of WiFi drivers included.
>>
>> This is just a quick intro to some of the experience and what we are focused on fine tuning. Please take the time to check it out and let us know about your experience. It should be known that Koen has continued to advance the state of the Angstrom Distributions images he provides and those continue to serve as a more flexible base for building truly custom Linux distributions needed by many embedded systems developers. However, as our user base has grown, getting a Debian image that feels a bit more familiar to Linux novices is something for which I've heard tremendous demand. If feedback from the community is positive, there will be a switch as to what distribution comes loaded in the eMMC flash on the boards. I hope you enjoy it!
>>
>>
>>

mbba...@gmail.com

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Mar 25, 2014, 1:21:04 AM3/25/14
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I really like the 2014-03-19 image. It solves most of the problems I was having with Ubuntu and Angstrom. I am now able to connect wirelessly to WPA secured networks using Adafruit's dongle while tethered via a USB cable! This will make developing and debugging an autonomous robot that uses computer vision infinitely easier.

I do have a few ideas for making the image slightly better.

First, any chance you can install xrdp? This would allow my students to remote into the BeagleBone without having to access the Internet?

Second, if I remember correctly it looks like the version designed to run from the SD card lists wlan0 within Wicd, but the eMMC version does not. IAny chance you can list wlan0 within Wicd for both versions?

Third, I had to input the passphrase into Wicd, generate the PSK using wpa_passphrase, and then add the PSK into Wicd. Not sure why. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I suspect it's some sort of glitch with Wicd.

mbba...@gmail.com

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Mar 26, 2014, 1:12:48 AM3/26/14
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Sad to say that I had my wifi dongle working yesterday, but despite hours of effort today, I was unable to get it working.

Mark A. Yoder

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Mar 27, 2014, 10:25:27 AM3/27/14
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I see a 2014-03-26 image has appeared.  Unfortunately when I flash [1] and boot from it, it appears to never leave u-boot.  Just 3 LEDs light and it just hangs.

I try this on two SD cards and both had the same behavior.

Robert Nelson

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Mar 27, 2014, 11:56:03 AM3/27/14
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On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 9:25 AM, Mark A. Yoder <mark.a...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I see a 2014-03-26 image has appeared. Unfortunately when I flash [1] and
> boot from it, it appears to never leave u-boot. Just 3 LEDs light and it
> just hangs.

Humm, that means "uenvcmd" wasn't defined in uEnv.txt.. I wonder how
that happened (1). Does it help if you hold down the boot button?
What do you have flashed to the eMMC? (i have it setup to be
compatible with atleast Angstrom's 2013.06.20 u-boot)

1: https://github.com/beagleboard/image-builder/blob/master/target/boot/beagleboard.org.txt#L45

>
> I try this on two SD cards and both had the same behavior.
>
> --Mark
>
> [1]
> http://rcn-ee.net/deb/testing/2014-03-26/bone-debian-7.4-2014-03-26-2gb.img.xz

Testing now too..

Robert Nelson

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Mar 27, 2014, 12:22:12 PM3/27/14
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Okay tested, and i see the issue.. To save bandwidth i mirror the
kernel *.deb locally, which runs/updates at midnight, so the kernel
never got installed. So i just need to add that error condition and
just rerun the script again..

Thanks for testing, sorry for the error!

*************************
U-Boot SPL 2014.04-rc2-00015-g99288ca (Mar 12 2014 - 09:49:41)
reading args
spl_load_image_fat_os: error reading image args, err - -1
reading u-boot.img
reading u-boot.img


U-Boot 2014.04-rc2-00015-g99288ca (Mar 12 2014 - 09:49:41)

I2C: ready
DRAM: 512 MiB
NAND: 0 MiB
MMC: OMAP SD/MMC: 0, OMAP SD/MMC: 1
*** Warning - readenv() failed, using default environment

Net: <ethaddr> not set. Validating first E-fuse MAC
cpsw, usb_ether
Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0
gpio: pin 53 (gpio 53) value is 1
mmc0 is current device
gpio: pin 54 (gpio 54) value is 1
SD/MMC found on device 0
reading uEnv.txt
1390 bytes read in 5 ms (271.5 KiB/s)
gpio: pin 55 (gpio 55) value is 1
Loaded environment from uEnv.txt
Importing environment from mmc ...
Checking if uenvcmd is set ...
gpio: pin 56 (gpio 56) value is 1
Running uenvcmd ...
reading zImage
** Unable to read file zImage **
reading initrd.img
** Unable to read file initrd.img **
reading /dtbs/am335x-boneblack.dtb
** Unable to read file /dtbs/am335x-boneblack.dtb **
Bad Linux ARM zImage magic!

uenvcmd was not defined in uEnv.txt ...
gpio: pin 56 (gpio 56) value is 0
gpio: pin 55 (gpio 55) value is 0
gpio: pin 54 (gpio 54) value is 0
mmc1(part 0) is current device
gpio: pin 54 (gpio 54) value is 1
SD/MMC found on device 1
** No partition table - mmc 1 **
Checking if uenvcmd is set ...
gpio: pin 56 (gpio 56) value is 1
Running uenvcmd ...
** No partition table - mmc 1 **
** No partition table - mmc 1 **
** No partition table - mmc 1 **
Bad Linux ARM zImage magic!

uenvcmd was not defined in uEnv.txt ...
Booting from nand ...

no devices available

no devices available
Bad Linux ARM zImage magic!
U-Boot#
************

Mark A. Yoder

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Mar 27, 2014, 12:24:09 PM3/27/14
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Thanks Robert.  I'll watch for the update.

--Mark
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