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January 16, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Supporting 200 Different Expansions Boards: The Broken Promise of Device Tree – ELCE 2012

Koen Kooi, software engineering manager at Circuitco Electronics and lead developer of the Angstrom distribution, explains that device tree does help with the ARM Linux kernel, but brings all the complexity to the bootloader(s), taking the variety of Beaglebone capes as example, at the Embedded Linux Conference in Barcelona, Spain, on November 6, 2012. Abstract: Devicetree is marketed as the one ring to rule them all when it comes to non-discoverable hardware for Linux on ARM. The problem with devicetree is that the complexity gets removed from the kernel and put into the bootloader. Koen first gives an overview of device tree, and provides an example (am33xx.dtsi) to show device tree data structure. Then time for some Beaglebone and capes promotion overview, before moving to the core of the problem: Pinctrl Resource tracking EVM/bone split uboot/uimage/dtb lockstep pdata only Keycodes and other non-hardware bits You can also download the presentation […]

January 15, 2013January 31, 2013 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Beaglebone: The Perfect Telemetry Platform? – ELCE 2012

Matt Ranostay, technical staff at Ranostay Industries, gives a presentation about a telemetry system based on Beaglebone at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe on November 5, 2012. Abstract: The author will discuss his ongoing and other team members efforts to develop hardware and software that reports sensor data to the community. This talk will be split into several parts a) types of useful sensors b) hardware design of Beaglebone capes c) and telemetry reports to Pachube/Cosm. Demonstrating that in the new world of cheap prototyping boards with I2C, GPIO, and SPI that anyone can setup a decent monitoring system for home security, automation, and weather reporting. There will be a live demo of prototype geiger counter + weather station. The audience targeted is the professional hobbyist who likes to hack on microcontrollers in their spare time. It will take little to medium knowledge of electrical engineering to follow this talk. […]

November 1, 2012 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

The Beaglebord Community Launches The Beaglebone Cape Design Contest

The Beagleboard community has just announced the BeagleBone Cape Plug-in Board Design Contest. All you need to do (more easily said than done) is to design a Capefor the Beaglebone and submit the relevant materials during the contest period (November 1 – December 31, 2012) and if you’re one of the winner, you’ll receive cash prizes, a free devkit and you’ll become a Beagleboard community “God” as your Cape will be manufactured and sold through CircuitCo Electronics. To enter the competition, you’ll need to do the following by the 31st of December 2012: Come up with an original cape design and upload the Schematic layout and Bill of Materials (>$60) to an online sharing site (ex: Google Drive, Github) set for public view. Record a video describing your cape idea and upload it to YouTube. Click on the Submit Design Here button in http://beagleboard.org/CapeContest/ to submit your entry. On January 7, 2013, the list […]