Latest Image from elinux nonfunctional?

[Alice Crichton]

Hey guys

Currently, I don't have the ability to set up my own image, so I went with the Machinekit.io suggestion of just flashing the pre-existing file on elinux. The current version (2019/12/16) I could not get fully functional for the life of me, I got past the login easily enough, and then it just sits there with the cursor indefinitely. I spent about two days working on it, trying different things to get it to run, with no luck. This morning, after working through the night I realized for the sake of a sanity check I should flash other things to check if it was my process, and managed to install Debian, and then I attempted to hunt for an older image to try. Me and a friend searched for about an hour for something prebuilt, and couldn't find any backdated ones, so eventually I resorted to Wayback Machine, and the next closest I could find was from 2017. I got that one working with no trouble, but it doesn't seem to have support for my board (CRAMPS) and is, I'm sure, missing out on all the cool tech you guys have been working on for the past two years.

I know you guys are normally a little more intense than "I screwed up installing" and I wouldn't want to be the annoying noob with the idiot question, but I've been working on solving this for around 2.5 days and all I've got seems to point to "Something is wrong with the latest prebuilt image". I've worked with a few singleboard computers in the past, and I worked in QA for software for a bit, so I'm trying my best to point at the problem, but I don't have the linux chops to know exactly what's going wrong here. My old Ubuntu machine fried around 6 years ago and I haven't had the time or courage to go back since. The only other thing I can think of is the (brand new) beaglebone was actually just ancient stock, and is no longer supported by the current update?

If anyone can point me in the right direction I'd be very grateful, I'm already quite a ways into this project in both time and money, and was hoping to have some steppers spinning by christmas.

Thanks a bunch

-Alice

[Robert Nelson]

Currently there is no maintainer for the BeagleBone MachineKit image:

Here is the config file, patches welcome..

https://github.com/beagleboard/image-builder/blob/master/configs/machinekit-debian-stretch.conf

It still get's built once a week, as that part is automated. But as
you can see, no one really boots or tests it anymore..

Regards,

--
Robert Nelson
https://rcn-ee.com/

[Jeff Pollard]

Hi,

  The newest version does not include a desktop (if that is what you were looking for).  If your right click on the screen after entering the username and password, you should be able to get a small menu.  From there you should be able to find a spot to get to a terminal window.  Finally from there you should be able to download a desktop like lxde.  This assumes you have an internet connection to the processor you are using.

  I don't remember the exact steps I used to do this, but it was something like:

First do a : sudo apt-get update

Then a : sudo apt-get install lxde

 

https://wiki.lxde.org/en/Installation (follow debian instructions - but I still recommend the update first).

   Then try a reboot and the desktop should come up.

   From there you can add other things as necessary ( editors, like leafpad,  file managers like pcmanfm).

Jeff