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Friday, April 18, 2014

4D System's 4.3 inches LCD Cape

I bought 4D System's 4.3 inches LCD Cape for my BBB. Just put the cape with the board and turn on the power. It works very well.


Produce detail :
http://www.4dsystems.com.au/product/4DCAPE_43/

  • 4DCAPE-43T (Resistive Touch version)
  • 4.3" TFT LCD Display, 480x272 Resolution
  • 7 push buttons, including LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN, ENTER, RESET and POWER
  

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

How to update BBB firmware (by Linux pc)

Today I just updated new firmware image to my BBB by using my Linux pc. So, I will show you how to do it.

1. Better to check your BBB firmware version by access /media/BEAGLEBONE_/ID.txt file on the board.



2. Go to  http://beagleboard.org/latest-images and find the latest image (eMMC flasher version) that newer than your BBB firmware version. Then download it.



3. Extract image file, because I using Linux for all processes. So, I use xz tool to do that. (tar should do the same trick but my tar version just too old to do that and somehow I can't update it)

# xz -d BBB-eMMC-flasher-2013.09.04.img.xz

4. Now you need micro-sdcard + micro to sdcard adapter (and maybe sdcard to usb adapter in case that your pc has no sdcard slot) the image size is about 3.4 GByte so you need sdcard with more space than that.


5. Plug sdcard into pc and write the image to the sdcard with dd command.

# dd if=BBB-eMMC-flasher-2013.09.04.img of=/dev/sdc bs=1M
*** note: replace (/dev/sdc) with your sdcard device. check it carefully if you don't want to lose your data !!

6. After a while, when dd command is done, try to mount the sdcard and explore it.you will see something like this. 


7. Remove the sdcard and install micro-sdcard to the BBB. Remove all cables, hold "S2" Boot switch down while plug the power in. For about 2-3 seconds the user LEDs will flashing then it's ok the release the button. Now just wait... patiently



8. the user LEDs will flashing for about 30-45 minutes then they are all light up. That's mean the upgrade process was done. unplug the power and micro-sdcard. 


9.Power on and go check to ID.txt file. If it shows the new firmware version then everything is well done.

That is for today. See you next time :)