Getting Started with Cubieboard

By Olliver M. Schinagl

Embedded platforms are interesting because they combine two fun fields. On one side, there is open source software, and on the other side, there is open source hardware. But a little further from that, we have electronics (AVR-microcontrollers), which can be very interesting and fun to work with. Cubieboard is a powerful single board computer, similar to Raspberry Pi, that supports multiple operating systems, such as Ubuntu and Debian.

This book will teach you everything you need to know about project development using Cubieboard, even if you are not an embedded platform expert.

The book starts by going over the most well-known Allwinner development boards, helps you choose a board, and recommends additional required hardware. Next, the book briefly explains how to "talk" to the board. Then, things start to get interesting with the installation of a desktop OS onto an SD card and booting into a fully graphical desktop system. Concluding this work, the last chapter gives you an example of how to connect external peripherals such as an LED.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Release date: Dec 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781783281589

Book preview

Table of Contents

Getting Started with Cubieboard

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers, and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What is needed for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Choosing the Right Board

Wading through the forest of available chips and boards

A short overview of chips

Choosing the right development board

Olimex

Cubietech

Lemaker

Itead and Olimex

Additional hardware

Serially interfacing with the board

Universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter

The microSD adapter

The microSD card

Power supply

Summary

2. Getting Started with the Hardware

Connecting a serial port

Booting up the preinstalled software

Summary

3. Installing an Operating System

Booting the Cubieboard

OS image installation background

Getting and preparing Fedora

Writing the OS image to the SD card

Writing the bootloader

Finishing the operating system installation

Precautionary measures for installing updates

Maintaining the OS and installing updates

Adding more software to the OS

Summary

4. Manually Installing an Alternative Operating System

Prerequisites for this chapter

Preparing the destination medium

Formatting the newly created partitions

Creating a Debian or Ubuntu rootfs

Installing debootstrap

Running debootstrap

Configuring the base system

Configuring the networking

Making the destination medium bootable

The root user

Preparing the chroot command

Changing the root password

Creating a new super user

Exiting chroot

Adding the serial console

Adding the serial console to Debian

Adding the serial console to Ubuntu

Rebooting the new OS

Getting around the new OS via the command line

Introducing apt

Configuring apt

Keeping the OS up to date

Installing additional software

Finding packages

Installing the software package using apt-get

Installing the software package using tasksel

Installing packages via metapackages

Summary

5. Setting Up a Home Server

Prerequisites for the home server board

Accessing the server remotely

Interacting with services

Starting, stopping, restarting, or reloading a service

Adding or removing a service from the boot up

Running scheduled tasks automatically

Setting up a proxy server

Installing Squid

Setting up a caching proxy

Configuring a browser to use the proxy

Setting up a blocking proxy

Setting up a web server

Setting up a file server

Setting up a torrent server

Setting up a personal cloud

Summary

6. Updating the Bootloader and Kernel

Prerequisites for this chapter

The bootloader overview

U-boot-sunxi

Installing the bootloader

Completing the bootloader

Exploring the kernel

Variants of the SoC

Overview of the various kernels

Kernel Version 2.6.36

Kernel Versions 3.0 and stage 3.0

Kernel Version 3.3

Kernel Versions 3.4 and stage 3.4

Kernel version experimental-3.14

The devel branch of the kernel

Next branch of the kernel

Choosing a kernel

Installing the kernel

Installing the kernel modules

Summary

7. Compiling the Bootloader and Kernel Using a BSP

Prerequisites

Installing a toolchain

Debian or Ubuntu

Fedora

Other distributions

Other required tools and packages

Obtaining and maintaining the BSP

Updating the repositories

Choosing a kernel

Compiling for a Cubieboard

Summary

8. Blinking Lights and Sensing the World

Making an LED glow

Resistance required

Sinking and sourcing

Amplifying the voltage and current

Controlling pins from software

Pulling up and pulling down

Reading a switch

Summary

A. Getting Help and Finding Other Helpful Online Resources

Meeting the community

Getting in touch with the Olimex community

Getting in touch with the Cubietech community

Getting in touch with the linux-sunxi community

Getting help by asking the right questions

Getting support for any new Allwinner-based hardware

Summary

B. Basic Linux Commands Cheatsheet

Requesting the manual

Listing a directory

Changing through directories

Getting the current working directory

Getting the current user

Running commands as root

Changing the current user without logging out

Creating files or changing their dates

Creating directories

Removing files

Removing a directory

Copying files and directories

Moving files and directories

Changing file and directory access permissions

Changing file and directory ownership

Changing passwords

Displaying the content of a text file

Modifying the partitions on a disk

Formatting partitions

Mounting partitions

Unmounting partitions

Writing data

Changing to a special root directory

Forcing the system to write all content to disks

Adding new users

Additional commands

Summary

C. The FEX Configuration File

Initial boot up

Compiling and decompiling the FEX file

Understanding the FEX file format

Pin configurations

Further reading

Installing the configured FEX file

Summary

D. Troubleshooting the Common Pitfalls

Stability issues

Boot failures when booting from SD cards

No display output via a connected monitor

Summary

Index

Getting Started with Cubieboard

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Getting Started with Cubieboard

Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: December 2014

Production reference: 1121214

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-78328-157-2

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Cover image by Mattia Grillo (<[e-mail]>)

Credits

Author

Olliver M. Schinagl

Reviewers

Praveen Palanisamy

Benjamin Henrion

Emilio López

Acquisition Editor

Llewellyn Rozario

Content Development Editor

Sriram Neelakantan

Technical Editor

Shashank Desai

Copy Editor

Sarang Chari

Project Coordinators

Aboli Ambardekar

Melita Lobo

Proofreaders

Maria Gould

Ameesha Green

Indexer

Hemangini Bari

Production Coordinator

Shantanu N. Zagade

Cover Work

Shantanu N. Zagade

About the Author

Olliver M. Schinagl is Austrian-born and a software developer at heart with a strong interest in electronic engineering. Embedded software is where both his passions come together. Having lived in the Netherlands for most of his life, Olliver is currently working at Ultimaker, a 3D printer manufacturer, where his love for Linux, free and open source software, and embedded development is satisfied. Having worked on open source projects, and as a longtime member of the linux-sunxi community, Olliver has in-depth and hands-on experience with Allwinner-based hardware.

He always had a desire to teach but a stronger desire to work on open source projects and embedded hardware. Thus, when offered the chance to write a book in his spare time, he decided to listen to his inner voice and took the chance to use the printed form to teach.

Having never done any writing except for academic work, this was both a challenge and a great experience. Hopefully, you will appreciate the effort and not only learn from the things brought via this book, but also gain the appetite to work out creative ideas, put the knowledge to good use, and share it with others so they can then benefit from it.

Writing a book costs time, and to understand and support this, I would like to thank my partner in life, Anshariah, who encouraged and cursed those late night writing sessions. Additionally, I would like to thank my parents and all my friends for always being there for me, supporting me, and being proud as parents and friends would be.

Finally, a pledge of gratitude goes out to all the free and open source software and hardware developers and advocates for all the things they make and create, all the things they share, and all the things I have learned from. It is because of them that I am able to write code and text using all the source tools. It is people like you who, in the end, make the world a better place.

About the Reviewers

Praveen Palanisamy is a robotics, computer vision, and embedded system enthusiast, and he is currently pursuing his Master's degree at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He got his Bachelor's degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Vellore Institute of Technology University, Chennai. Inventing a machine that can walk, run, think, and interact like human beings has always intrigued and fascinated him.

He is an autodidact who learned computer programming. Spurred by his passion for robotics, he learned image processing and computer vision techniques to program and build intelligent robots and embedded systems. He has worked with a series of ARM architecture-based development boards and CPUs, including Dual-core Cortex-A9-based Pandaboard ES, Cortex-A8-based Cubieboard, and Cortex-M3-based Stellaris IDM L-35. He has also worked with 8-bit AVR RISC microcontrollers and Arduino. He has experience in building Linux systems from scratch on embedded platforms. He is working part-time in a computer vision-based start-up named Cladoop. A list of Praveen's projects and demonstrations can be explored at http://praveenp.com.

Benjamin Henrion has been hacking embedded devices since 2000 with the OpenAP/LinuxAP distribution running on the first wireless router that runs Linux. He has been an exclusive Linux user since 1996, and he owns an extensive collection of embedded devices running Linux. He has contributed to the development of wireless routing protocols and initiated the Wireless Battle Mesh event, which aims to test those protocols running on routers based on OpenWrt.

Benjamin is also the President of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure e.V. (http://ffii.org/), and he has been fighting software patents since 1999, from the beginning of the European debate till now. He has launched several popular campaigns on the Internet, such as the August 2003 and June 2005 web demonstrations against software patents (400,000 signatures), the PublicGeoData campaign for free maps (5,000 signatures), and the campaign against Microsoft Office's standardization at ISO (100,000 signatures); for more information, refer to http://noooxml.wikidot.com/.

He currently works for a VoIP company as a systems engineer. His interests lie in computer science, politics, and mountain biking. His personal website is http://www.zoobab.com/.

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Preface

Over the last few years, ARM chips have become trendy and ubiquitous, ranging from the phone and tablet market to power-efficient server farms. The low cost associated with the chips in conjunction with