OMAP
Status of the Ubuntu port to the TI OMAP3/4 Platform
This page collects information necessary to get a working Ubuntu port on the TI OMAP3/4 Platform using only open source components and everything in the official archives.
Contents
Prerequisites
Installation Requirements
- 4GiB Class 2 SD Card (8 GiB Class 6-10 recommended for improved performance)
- Serial console for netboot/server images
- HDMI display for desktop images
- For non-serial images, a USB keyboard
- 45-1h of time (excluding downloading time)
/o\ Older Beagleboards (revision B & C) will default to NAND instead of SD. For these boards, a serial cable may be needed to start the installation.
Installation files for OMAP3/4
Oneiric Ocelot (11.10) Desktop & Server
- Most people want these
Images can be downloaded at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/11.10/release/
Oneiric Ocelot (11.10) Netinstall Images
- This is a very minimal installer image, but allows for installation to a USB device, and a highly customized installation.
Images are available at http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/dists/oneiric/main/installer-armel/current/images/omap4/netboot/
- boot.img-fb.gz runs the installer on an HDMI display
- boot.img-serial.gz runs the installer on a serial display
Preparing the media
Writing the image
You should write the raw image to a blank SD card. Make sure you're using at least a 4G SD card (desktop image is 2G uncompressed).
Linux
Steps:
- Place the SD card at your host computer.
- Make sure the SD card is not mounted (just umount it if needed)
Identify the correct raw device name (like /dev/sde - not /dev/sde1)
- Run the following command to write it:
(replacing omap4 and sde with the right values i.e. just omap for a beagle image.)
zcat ./ubuntu-12.04-preinstalled-desktop-armhf+omap4.img.gz |sudo dd bs=4M of=/dev/sde ; sudo sync
![Warning /!\](/moin_static198/light/img/icon_eek.png "Warning /!\"){kind=icon}
Some people have reported issues with this method. If this doesn't work, try the following commands:
- gunzip ubuntu-12.04-preinstalled-desktop-armhf+omap4.img.gz
- sudo dd bs=4M if=ubuntu-12.04-preinstalled-desktop-armhf+omap4.img of=/dev/sde
- sudo sync
MAC (OSX 10.x)
Download the image and extract it with the system archive utility, you should get a .img file if the disk is mounted disk1.. disk2.. not - disk0, unmount it with the following code.
sudo diskutil unmountDisk disk1
Then use the following code to write the image to disk1 (not - disk1s1..)
sudo dd bs=4m if=ubuntu-12.04-preinstalled-server-armhf+omap4.img of=/dev/disk1
If you get any errors trying to run the following code then try reinserting the SD card and trying again after unmounting the disk, or try formatting it first with DiskUtilities
Windows (XP/Vista/7)
Download the image and extract it using WinZip or some other archive utility. Then use Win32ImageWriter to write the unzipped img file to your flash device.
Starting the Installer
Desktop/Server/Netinstall FB
These images use the video outputs to show the installation. Simply connect the monitor, and USB keyboard, and you are good to go, insert the SD card, and power the board, and you are good to go. Simply follow the prompts to complete the installation
Netboot Serial Console
Attach a serial cable to the serial port on the board. (note: The board is already wired for a straight serial cable - no null modem needed)
- Open a terminal on your host system and launch a serial console monitor with the port set for 115200,n,8,1
Screen: screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200
* you can end the screen session by pressing Ctrl-A and then K
Minicom: TERM=vt100 minicom
* the TERM=vt100 setting is needed for proper output formatting
* you can end the minicom session by pressing Ctrl-A and then X or Q
- Insert the SD card in the system and switch on the board.
The system should start booting with output shown on your serial terminal.
Booting on Beagleboard Rev. B & C
These older beagleboards try to boot from NAND initially and will ignore the boot script on the SD card
Insert SD card with new image into the beagleboard and reset while holding User1 button on system
On omap3 systems with a modified NAND (i.e. beaglebord C series) do the following:
On a serial console connected to the system, halt any autoboot script and type
setenv bootcmd 'mmc init;fatload mmc 0 0x82000000 boot.scr;source 0x82000000'; setenv autostart yes; saveenv; boot
On revision B7 Beagleboards and older(?) the syntax is slightly different. So if you are getting messages saying 'mmcinit usage' and 'source command not found' errors try:
setenv bootcmd 'mmcinit;fatload mmc 0 0x82000000 boot.scr;autoscr 0x82000000'; setenv autostart yes; saveenv; boot
The system should start booting (note that this step is only necessary if you have a NAND and the system does not default to reading boot.scr from SD)
== Partitioning Notes (Netboot Only) Due to limitations with the partitioning infrastructure in debian-installer, guided partitioning is only semi-functional on OMAP platforms.
Installation to SD card
- Simply select Guided - Use Remaining Free Space
Installation to USB drive
- Select Guided - Use Entire Drive, then make sure to select your USB hard drive (this will leave the boot partition on the SD card intact)
Manual Partitioning
Be careful not to touch the boot partition (it shows up as a fat32 partition with the bootable flag set). The boot partition MUST be first partition on the SD card, fat16/32, and marked bootable; there is no sanity checking of this partition at this time. If you delete the partition, it can be recreated in partman:
* Create a 72 MiB FAT32 partition, with no mount point, and the Bootable flag must be set to 'on'. This partition must be the first partition on the device. flash-kernel-installer will be able to find the partition on its own.
After installation
Your OMAP system will reboot, and boot into the full Ubuntu environment. Ubuntu requires that you boot from SD card, and thus you must leave your SD card in place even if your using a USB harddrive.
Graphics Support
Please check the Graphics Page to get SGX working with Ubuntu.
Older Releases
Natty Narwhal (11.04)
New with Natty Narwhal (11.04) was the release of headless images that can be configured and controlled via serial console. No keybord, mouse, or monitor is needed for these images to run. (Note, "headless" was renamed to "server" in Oneiric.)
Images are located at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/11.04/release/