Several OMAP/Beagle patches land upstream for Linux 2.6.33

I'm feeling pretty happy and excited today looking at the patches Linus Torvalds has recently merged into the Linux kernel mainline, such as a huge patch set from Tony Lindgren[1]. I'm particularly happy to see that DSS2 is there[2], so there shouldn't be any more confusion about what display driver to use on OMAP. The USB EHCI (host port) driver also finally got merged[5]. I also see a large number of power management patches being included.

Baseline support for several OMAP3 systems has also been included, including the Always Innovating Touch Book[3], AM3517 EVM[6], IGEPv2[7], CM-T35[8], OMAP3630 Zoom-3[9] and some updates for the OpenPandora[4]. Many of the OMAP3 development boards[10] and open development platforms are still not listed or easy to find in the Kconfig descriptions or board instance files.

A large number of bug fixes are also included.

It typically takes Linus 2-3 weeks to put together the first release candidate. After that, it typically takes 2-3 months to hammer out the bugs enough to make the the release. I'm looking forward to seeing great testing and contributions from the OMAP and BeagleBoard communities following the release of Linux 2.6.33-rc1!!

[1] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=9c3936cb694ffd559c80dc3eb75b61f769a39259
[2] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=blob;f=Documentation/arm/OMAP/DSS
[3] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=7a079cab4632265fc87ee483daf57879d5dd87f2
[4] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=8d88f7f70cca3fa6aabac287fccd40cebacb92d1
[5] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=54ab2b02ef6a454b4cca969f546d0dd43fec7308
[6] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=c625327e2f5a506a89563e14ed837c82fa61548f
[7] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=58e111621d402d41cb0cabae7c532d6194b7d943
[8] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=2886d128d8ff83af88b9cbe6dbf7f0d2bbee8d76
[9] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=5f35fbe8b8a05743fb9686e33194a126cd4273f6
[10] http://wiki.omap.com/index.php?title=OMAP3_Boards

Videos of intro to Nov 17th community lightning talks and all the Aug 27th talks

See the full list of movies in the YouTube playlist. They include OMAP3-based open platforms like the Always Innovating Touch Book and the Oregon State ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) OSWALD, software frameworks running on OMAP3 like Gnome, Ubuntu, GStreamer, and QNX Neutrino, projects for open software defined radio (SDR), hardware projects to expand Beagle with LCDs and Ethernet, the DM355-based open camera project LeopardBoard.org, and new applications like the PicoFlamingo presentation system.

To see the slides or join the Nov 17th event, visit the wiki page. Enjoy!

NEON training

One of the most important aspects of the BeagleBoard.org community is that I'm mostly irrelevant. This means that I'm not a bottleneck to the important things that happen in the community. Unfortunately, it also means that I'm also not always in-the-loop on great events coming up that utilize the BeagleBoard and getting the word out to everyone on-time. Even so, I imagine a lot of you are going to the ARM Techcon3 and can make use of this nice litte bit of hands-on training using the BeagleBoard that I learned about from Ken Havens:

Turning the NEON Light On (Hands-on Workshop)
Wednesday, Oct 21 3:00pm - 4:30pm
TechMart: San Jose room

Friday, Oct 23 10:00am - 11:30am
TechMart: San Jose room

This seminar will be a hands-on introduction to NEON (the SIMD extension on Cortex-A processors) using Beagleboards running Ubuntu Linux. Attendees should be software engineers with some prior experience of armcc or gcc with an interest in low-level software optimizations.

Beagleboard in India costs 3500 Rupees less ...

It is great to know that IDA systems will be shipping beagleboards in India for just Rs 8999 http://www.idasystems.net/beagle_board

In the past beagleboards were available for 12500 Rs, thanks for Gerald Coley, CircuitCo and IDA to work together in getting the cost down for India.

IDA systems is also announced as official distributor for Beagleboards http://beagleboard.org/buy. So any one in India can get local support for beagleboards and shipping should be fast with no lead times like before.

Good Luck to IDA and beagle board India users.

Regards,
Khasim

http://hawkboard.wordpress.com/
http://hawkboard.org/

Beagle Clinic India : August Event - an update

Beagle Clinic India was held at Texas Instruments campus on 29th Aug 2009. More details about participants and the technology discussed please click the link below,
http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard/bangalore_user_meet#Beagle_Clinic_India
Few action items that were taken during the meet with probable solutions are given below :
- USB HOST hangs when multiple devices are connected – OE kernel
need to post this query to linux-omap-vger kernel mailing list and get the support
- SGX training online – NON angstrom distribution
Girish is helping on generating this training content should be available by early next week.
- LCD board for Beagle
No support yet.
- Operating frequency for 600Mhz
This is possible with PM brach, echo 5 > /sys/power/vdd1_lock
- Arrange one hands on Gstreamer and SGX sessions
In next beagle clinic we can take up one of these.
- A wiki page for QT to get it working on beagleboard
Need to find a voluteer for this.
I have taken other inputs on cleaning up the code.google.com/p/beagleboard, sorry due to multiple things was not able to do this, it should be done by end of next week.
Other topics discussed were
Leopard: to support mmc boot support in u-boot, will have to check this out.
Devkit (with answers) :
- USB Host not working : will be resolved by embest in next two months.
- Audio and board hang : embest will test can get back
- WinCE images not working: Give more details to embest
- Support : embest is considering supporting the team on beagle mailing list
- Camera module: Not available for customers
I will be in Pune for trainings on OMAP L , DM355 leopard and beagleboard on Sept 24th and Sept 25th, I am not sure if I can co-ordinate the beagle clinic this month also we long weekend holidays coming up next month, please suggest an alternat date for the same.
Next event :
- Hands on training with SGX modules
- Show case OMAP L 138 platform (ia)
- Get some one on call to discuss USB issues.
- If possible get gstreamer hands on training.
Kindly note this event is mainly meant to fix and solve issues we are facing with beagleboard, leopard board and other community platforms.

Thanks to attendees, lets keep this going to make things easier with beagle board.

Khasim
khasim@beagleboard.org

Beagle Board at ESC Boston

The Beagle Board is back at ESC Boston! There will be a user's group meeting following the training sessions. There is a two-hour hands-on introduction and 3 hands-on classes featuring Android, DSP-accelerated audio/video, and use of the 3D graphics accelerator. Classes are free for ESC attendees with a $99 setup fee to get access to a lab station if you bring your own Beagle Board and $299 to get a new Beagle Board with the class.

For more information, visit http://beagleboard.org/esc.

On-line Community Lightning Talks and Hands-on Training

To complement its $99 world-wide Tech Days 2009 program, TI is putting on a new free, on-line event called eTech Days (http://www.ti.com/etechdays). It is a full day of interactivity and problem-solving on Thursday, August 27 2009.

As just one part of this event, open source community developers are invited to present on their on-going activities and drive discussion on the #beagle IRC channel on Freenode. For more information or to register a talking slot, visit the wiki information page at: http://wiki.omap.com/index.php/ETechDays_Community_Lightning_Talks.

Also, if you haven't already heard, the Beagle Board is back at ESC Boston! Sign up for hands-on training today at: http://esc-boston.techinsightsevents.com/ti_beagleboard.

PicoFlamingo wins a Zoom-II for work in the BeagleBoard.org Sponsored Projects Program

Futuristic and innovative ideas pay off in the form of a sweet device! Congrats to the PicoFlamingo team for thinking outside of the box with their BeagleBoard-based portable presentation system and winning a monthly prize in the Sponsored Projects Program for their excellent progress. They have been awarded the OMAP 3 based Zoom II Mobile Development Platform to help pioneer more of their inventions and can’t wait to see what they do to improve their Pink Egg.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to win a BeagleBoard and/or one of the monthly prizes – visit beagleboard.org/contest to learn how to submit ideas and keep the mailing list and your RSS feed up-to-date with your progress.

A successful Beagle Clinic program in India -May 2009

Hello all,

I am really sorry to update this after a while, was totally lost in my new lost cost board that is coming up with OMAP L 13x (ARM9 and Floating point DSP).

Beagle Clinic: A monthly Beagleboard consultation forum, an open event organized last Saturday of every month.

I was very happy to receive a very good set of beagle users across south India and a good set of faculty members from MSRAS.

Though I wanted to start on the problems and fix the same, it took us a while to train the new beagle board joinees, we concluded the session with beagle board bring up, rev c validation, OMAP3 TRM understanding and action plans.

I took a log of action items that we have to address,

1. Give info on DVI-Touch module with drivers - this looks expensive to go for in India.
2. Start workout sessions - take a problem and fix it
3. No another user group mailing list for India, mail to beagle discussion list with subject [BeagleClinic]
4. Discuss topics for the training on mailing list
5. Android specific training
6. Android event / training will be a paid event for future investment on boards and trainings.
7. Work with Cranes to enable - Buy board on the spot and accessories in next event.
8. Identify some distributors for beagle clones and buddies

Status of action items:

1 to 4 :- will be taken care.

5:- I want to schedule google android event in July as June will be difficult to manage, I think July 18th 2009 will be good.

6:- We have to fix a price for this event.

7:- Cranes is still short of boards, will still work with them, atleast they will be able to get accessories for the spot.

8:- I found embest boards bit useful and more complete for India market, http://www.armkits.com/Product/devkit8000.asp, I had initial talks with our China counterparts, I am also looking for Distributors in India who can purchase these boards in volume to reduce the shipping cost. We also have option to manufacture beagle boards in India, but again need to find a investor and distributor. If you happen to know one then let me know.

Frangline Jose and Abhishek Jacob have volunteered to train us on DSP Link, CE and Codec integration, I will have to schedule this activity, will happen in July 2nd or 3rd week.

The attendees and other details of the event are below. Thanks for all your support. Let's ensure that we fix problems and move forward with beagleboard.org.

There are lot of free board programs, I request students and hobbyists in India to leverage the
http://beagleboard.org/contest

Event details:

Details for May event
Date : May 30, 2009 (Saturday)
Time : 10.00 AM – 4.00 PM
Venue: MS Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies,
Gnanagangothri Campus, New B.E.L. Road, M.S.R. Nagar
Bangalore- 560 054

Attendees
Radha Krishna. S.
Raghavendran. N.
Prasad Rao
Vishal Bhoj [attended]
Amit Pundir [attended]
Subbu (irc: kozak)[attended]
Bharath S V
Madan Y C
Manjunath K R
Manjunath R V
Anand Shankar Kahaly [attended]
HarishKumar.V
Arun C.Giriyapur
Chandrakant N. Shet
Jomcy Pappachen
Rajan B
Sriram.N
Arindam Ghosh
S R Santhosh
R.Lakshmikanth
Vasanth Kumar B
Prasanth Unnikrishnan

Volunteers
Syed Mohammed Khasim (khasim@beagleboard.org, Viral Sachde ( viral at sachde dot com irc: virals ) , Jayaramudu, GirishBisto, Abhishek Jacob

In picture below, Yogesh Marathe - explaining DSP link usage to audience.

Thanks.

Khasim.

Beagleboard Design Contest INDIA Edition

Here is an exciting opportunity for students and professionals in India to showcase there talent on creating innovating applications with beagleboard.

ARM, Texas Instruments and Cranes have jointly come forward with this initiative called beagle board design contest with exciting prizes and recognitions like certificates, speaker slots, presentations, etc.

More information on this contest can be found here

http://www.cranessoftware.com/services/training/beagledesigncontest.html

Feel free to mail khasim@beagleboard.org for any queries or clarifications for this contest.

For any discussions please use beagle IRC and discussion list.

Good Luck

Khasim

A pair of EDN Innovation winners

The "OMAP35x Application Processor" and the "Beagle Board Embedded Linux Development Board" were both winners of tonight's EDN Innovation 2008 awards for their respective categories of "Microprocessors" and "Software/Embedded Tools". It was a great evening, with several great products recognized and it was nice to have our products among those. It was a great way to follow up a successful day of hands-on classes at the Embedded Systems Conference on the BeagleBoard. Too bad Boris wasn't there to accept the honors himself. :)

Rev C available for Silicon Valley BeagleBoard User's Group meeting

Rev C2 is available now! Same part number at Digi-Key and the same price!

• Twice the RAM (256MB, instead of 128MB)
• High-speed-only dedicated-host USB port with standard A-type connector
• LCD expansion header

All of the Rev B units sold out, so all new orders will be filled with Rev C units which are already in stock. The timing worked out perfectly with the last Rev B units being sold the day after the Rev C units arrived.

All of this is just-in-time for our Silicon Valley BeagleBoard Users' Group meeting being held immediately following the Embedded Systems Conference. We'll be enjoying a few beers and discussing the BeagleBoard.org sponsored project program. The meeting will be held in room B1 in the convention center right after the show closes at 4 PM, Thursday, April 2nd. Join us in the ESC Theater an hour earlier for a chance to win a BeagleBoard and a Tektronix scope. Hope to see you there!

ESC Build Your Own Embedded System online registration deadline 3/25

IMG_1038.CR2
Originally uploaded by jadonk

ESC BYOES online registration closes on 3/25. Register & get a new Rev C for the Beagle Board labs covering Android, 3D UIs, DSP-accelerated GStreamer, adding Bluetooth, and more. Only $199 to add the BYOES sessions to your ESC registration or just $595 for a special Beagle Board Days Pass.

See http://esc-sv09.techinsightsevents.com/byoes for details and to register.

Software design contest #2 (in 3D)

Congratulations again to Antti Seppanen for his BeagleBot and Diego Dompe for his support of usbtty in the Beagle u-boot on winning Beagle Board Rev C boards in the last software design contest.

We were a bit slow setting the dates for this contest with the hope of getting some entries with 3D graphics enabled. Koen, a frequent contributor to BeagleBoard.org and maintainer of the Angstrom Distribution that includes Beagle Board support, has given us a demo to show that this is now possible for community members. In his demonstration, he's running OGRE3D, an open source graphics engine, with Wiimote control and projection on his ceiling with the TI Pico Projector development kit.



As one of the contest judges, Koen isn't eligible for the contest, but you can build upon his work by utilizing the information provided on the Beagle mailing list for configuring the 3.00.00.06 SGX drivers that are now available from TI for download.

The contest details are at http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard/contest. To try to keep us on track of a contest per month, submissions must be complete, with all instructions and software, by Friday, February 27th. Good luck!