any Ubuntu version available with DSP support for simple use?

[Clemens Arth]

Hi,

I just browsed all the forums and did not really come to a reasonable conclusion, so here are my questions regarding my Beagleboard-xM:

1) is there any ubuntu version around that has the DSP support built in?
2) the last version that (I remember) somewhat worked ok was 12.04, with support from ti-dev launchpad. Has anyone got that version running ok recently?
3) I used trusty from http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu but I can't neither get an ubuntu desktop to work, nor do I have any idea how to get DSP support into the 3.18 kernel it runs per default. Anyone tried this?

Any pointers to a working setup are highly appreciated.
Cheers...

[Robert Nelson]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 5:47 AM, Clemens Arth <clemen...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just browsed all the forums and did not really come to a reasonable
> conclusion, so here are my questions regarding my Beagleboard-xM:
>
> 1) is there any ubuntu version around that has the DSP support built in?
> 2) the last version that (I remember) somewhat worked ok was 12.04, with
> support from ti-dev launchpad. Has anyone got that version running ok
> recently?
> 3) I used trusty from http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu but I can't
> neither get an ubuntu desktop to work, nor do I have any idea how to get DSP
> support into the 3.18 kernel it runs per default. Anyone tried this?

Sorry, "tidspbridge" got yanked from kernel.org due to no one working
on it. Someone needs to port it to "remoteproc" and push it upstream.
till then you'll need to rely on older kernel/images.

Regards,

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

[Clemens Arth]

thx a lot, Robert. Seems that my best be right now is using the 12.04 image with the launchpad updates? I'll report how it goes...
 

[Clemens Arth]

Ok, so after playing around for a while, I went back to this page as I thought it might be one of the most recent points to start. However, I already fail to get eth0 working on the device, no matter which rootfs I use. The smsc95xx driver is loaded, but eth0 simply does not show up. I read that there might be issues with the network, but none of the tips help. No luck so far...

[Clemens Arth]

Ok, that really sucks... after fixing the network over usb, any sort of update fails because 12.10, as well as 13.04 and 13.10 have gone EOL, so no more support from port.ubuntu.com.

Going back to 12.04, I was hoping to have support still. Using this image (cloned from your original repo) uboot hangs with some "invalid partition" message. Seems that the old config is not compatible with newer bootloaders.

Any ideas?

[Clemens Arth]

Ok, so after a while I figured out how to get some working setup. Here's a rough sketch how:

• retrieve 12.10 image and 12.04 image from http://ynezz.ibawizard.net/beagleboard
• extract 12.10 image to sdcard; copy off the contents of the boot partition (p1), the lib/modules and /etc/network/interfaces from the rootfs
  
• extract 12.04 image to sdcard; overwrite previously stored files/folders - that lets you boot 12.04 with a 12.10 kernel and overcomes the 12.04 misconfiguration of uboot
  
• boot into 12.04
• configure usb0 on host computer to allow internet access
• run apt-get update/upgrade
• copy back the 12.04 boot folder contents to p1
  
• reboot

The result is a correctly booting and working copy of 12.04.05 (as of today). I followed the rest of the instructions from http://ash-wilding.blogspot.co.at/2013/08/tutorial-using-dsp-on-beagleboard.html and got the dummy dsp test working.

I'm still doing some testing on the sd card image; as soon as I'm sure it works I will put it somewhere for all those that are interested in "playing around".

[Clemens Arth]

Hi again,

so I think the image runs pretty stable, as far as I can see from playing around with it half a day. There are a few minor issues here, and I hope you can help me out.

1) the ethernet is not working. I have no idea how to get that to work. Insmod of the driver does not do anything; nor any external powering. Is there anything going wrong, probably with the device tree loaded through startup?
2) which is even more annoying is that the board does not recognize a single USB device. I can get output over HDMI to a VGA screen, but dmesg does not report anything on connected USB devices - as if the USB hub was completely dead.

I think I can live without the ethernet, as long as the usb gadget works, but living without USB is a pita.

Clemens

[Clemens Arth]

Hi,

as promised, I uploaded the 12.04.5 sdcard image to our server as four parts RAR without password (requires a 2GB USB stick) for others to play around.

part1
part2
part3
part4

Backup:
$ dd if=/dev/sdb of=sd.img bs=4M
Restore:

$ dd if=sd.img of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

The credentials are still: ubuntu/temppwd. Once the system is up AND connected to the host PC through the mini-USB port, the beagle should be accessible over the USB Gadget as 192.168.7.2. The serial can also be used using minicom or something similar.

Regards
Clemens