Announcement from TI of BeagleBoard-xM hands-on training at ESC Chicago

Get hands-on training with the new BeagleBoard-xM, June 7-8 at ESC Chicago Attend ESC Chicago, June 7 & 8, and get hands-on interactive training with the new BeagleBoard-xM and talk with industry experts as they give you all of the hardware, boot, and kernel basics required to start development immediately. Attendees will learn how to engage with the BeagleBoard developer community, as well as how to obtain and utilize the source code projects most fundamental to the boards functionality. For those actively developing there will be targeted classes available addressing: Streaming media Graphical user interfaces Embedded Linux Android development for non-handset designs Register Now for ESC Chicago Sessions and kits are FREE to registered BeagleBoard workshop attendees. Arrive early, as space and board availability is limited. Come and experiment with the BeagleBoard-xM to see what new ideas it sparks in you. For more information or to order a BeagleBoard, please visit www.beagleboard.org Click here to register for BeagleBoard classes at ESC Chicago. SHARE THIS EMAIL

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Ubuntu image writer simplifies getting start using the BeagleBoard

If you happen to have a 2GB SD card and you are thinking about trying the Angstrom demo that Koen has created but are scared of all the partitioning, formatting, and copying instructions you are finding on the web, then I hope I'm about to share some joy with you.

Ubuntu now distributes a tool for writing images onto USB sticks and SD cards for the purpose of evaluating Ubuntu. For those of us who use Linux on a daily basis, it serves largely the same purpose as the 'dd' command, but it runs in Windows and Mac OS X as well and has a GUI to help prompt you along the way. You can get the tool from:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromImgFiles

Additionally, Koen, a maintainer for the Angstrom Distribution, has produced an image under his demo directory at:

http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/demo/beagleboard/sd-images/2gb/

You'll still need a tool to uncompress the image (which is Bzip2 compressed), but the rest should be mostly self-explanatory. Hopefully other distributions will follow and more SD images will be available soon!

BeagleBoard.org in Google Summer of Code!

BeagleBoard.org has been listed as one of the accepted mentoring organizations for the Google Summer of Code 2010!!!



Over 365 organizations applied and we are among the 150 lucky Free and Open Source projects that were accepted. About 1,000 students are expected to have their project proposals accepted and Google will be providing US$5,000 to every student and US$500 to the mentoring organization for every successfully completed project. Texas Instruments will be providing BeagleBoard hardware through the BeagleBoard.org Sponsored Projects Program. TinCanTools has offered to provide Zippy boards to students using those in their projects.

Now is the time for mentors (people who would like to assist the students), to sign up on the GSoC2010 site and to update the ideas list. It is also the time for students to get familiar with the BeagleBoard.org project and community before applications begin being accepted on March 29, so be sure to hang out on the #gsoc and #beagle channels on irc.freenode.net.

Spread the good news and bring on the projects!!!

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.

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.

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!

Crossing 1,000 mailing list subscribers

Last week was a very busy one for Beagle Boarders.

We had hundreds of people sign up for the 4 days of Beagle Board training at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston. Class attendance for several sessions were at capacity and many of the classes were hands-on, including hands-on classes on 3D user interface creation and . Those attendees are now able to refer to the course materials for the hands-on classes on-line and all the people who signed up walked away from the event with Beagle Boards in hand. Many thanks to MontaVista, RidgeRun, Bill Gatliff, Special Computing, HY Research, Angstrom Distribution developers, and all of the others involved. It was an amazing event.


We also had great demos on the show floor, including BSquare's wireless demo running on the OMAP35x EVM, CalSoft's Flash demo running on the Beagle Board, and the Gumstix Overo running Angstrom. I also got my first chance to play with a DLP Pico Projector, which drew a nice crowd at the booth.

Additionally, those of you who have been waiting on documentation for the power management device, the technical reference manual (TRM) for the TPS65950 is now available on-line. This is a drop-in functionally equivalent replacement for the TWL4030 with some analog performance improvements, including to the on-chip USB PHY.

Almost forgot to mention that I got an article published regarding use of open source software in consumer electronics. Beyond using open source software in consumer electronics, I really believe there is a future for products like the Neuros OSD as people want more control and ownership over what their products can do.

Lastly, at the time of this writing, we are now only 10 people away from having 1,000 mailing list subscribers. Interest is overwhelming and continuing to grow. Thanks for making the Beagle Board such a success so far and helping to set the course of where it goes from here!

Beagle at IBC

Lot's of activity going on around Beagle, but I've been lax on generating blog posts. In addition to the activity going on in preparation for ESC Boston, such as getting Sugar running, giving free trainings in India, and getting a new intern to watch the IRC logs, we also have our very own Roger Monk and Koen Kooi at IBC today. Stop by (IPTV zone IP322) if you want to take a look at the Beagle in action or simply hop on IRC and chat with them today while they are at the booth and logged into IRC using the Beagle board using nickname "beagle|ibc".

LugRadio Live UK 2008

Lugradio live 2008
Originally uploaded by koenkooi

The BeagleBoard.org community last weekend (July 19/20) showcased the latest beagle developments and capabilities at the LugRadio Live 08 Event in the UK. Koen Kooi (Open Embedded) and Måns Rullgård (FFmpeg) teamed up to deliver some stunning NEON accelerated High Definition video demonstrations and the latest ARM Cortex-A8 OE built Angstrom Distribution. Other demos included High Definition 3D graphics acceleration leveraging Beagle's Imagination SGX core and some C64x+ DSP accelerated audio and video codecs. Lots of great interest at the show in the capabilities of a such a 'small but powerful platform', especially when enabled by such a creative and dynamic community.

Koen also provided a handful of nice pictures from the event.

Edit (2008-07-29)--Linux Outlaws did an interview:

One more minor apperance...

Beagle will also be making an afternoon appearance at BarCampHouston3.

Trade Show News

The Beagle Board will making a number of appearances over the next few weeks. Our very own Khasim Syed Mohammed will be at OSScamp July 19th in Bengaluru, India. In the UK, Koen Kooi and Måns Rullgård are looking to show off FFmpeg and Ångström at LugRadio Live on July 19-20.

A BeagleBoard fan group has shown up on Facebook. Currently, only the upcoming LinuxWorld Expo event in San Francisco August 4-7 is listed, but it is possible to RSVP to express interest in the BeagleBoard meet-up. I'm expecting for details on the meet-up to be provided shortly. I look forward to meeting you there!

LinuxTag 2008 winners

And the winners are...

1. Sebastian Reschke
2. Harald Krippel
3. Ramiro Polla
4. Kate Alhola
5. Kees Jongenburger
6. Eugen Dischke
7. Davor Ocelic
8. Robert Bohme
9. Holger Wirtz
10. Jan Luebbe
11. Robert Schuster
12. Florian Boor

Each of the winners has now been contacted and we're in the process of shipping the boards. My apologies for each of you who applied and were not selected in the drawing. Perhaps, you can possibly take another shot at LugRadio Live UK 2008 July 19-20 or at the soon-to-be-planned big BeagleBoard.org meet-up at LinuxWorld Expo 2008 August 4-7 in San Francisco.

And, for those of you who attended our first meet-up at TIDC 2008 back in February, when we first started this mission, we haven't forgotten you! Feel free to express your desire for an early adopter board at 'revb-request' at beagleboard.org and that will let us know you aren't interested in waiting for the platform to mature any longer.

The little things

It is the little things that make me happy sometimes, like Koen adding support for the Linux LED driver.

Several triggers are possible, such as accessing the NAND, MMC/SD, or just a regular heartbeat, as Koen has demonstrated. To list off the possible triggers for the LED driver:

root@beagleboard:~# cat /sys/class/leds/beagleboard\:\:led0/trigger
none nand-disk [mmc0] heartbeat timer

The above shows the MMC/SD access trigger enabled. Koen selected that by issuing the following command:

root@beagleboard:/sys/class/leds/beagleboard::led0# echo mmc0 > trigger

Get started adding your own drivers today by starting with the existing code and the kernel git tree. See http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard#Code (Thanks Dirk!) for references. The patch was discussed on the IRC channel here: http://www.beagleboard.org/irclogs/index.php?date=2008-05-30#T12:04:27.

Meanwhile, Sakoman and Khasim are continuing to to push ahead with the full NAND flash support. All these "little" activities really make me happy. :)

Beagle Board at LinuxTag!

Texas Instruments is hosting the BeagleBoard.org booth at LinuxTag 2008 on May 28-31. You will see Beagle board live demos and discuss open source topics at the booth - Hall 7.2a Stand 122. On Friday, May 30th, there is a two hour workshop about the open source project in workshop room 2 at noon. More information on the event can be found at http://www.linuxtag.org/2008/en/home/welcome.html.

LUGRadio Live USA 2008 (continued)

Continuing from last LUGRadio Live USA 2008 report, the recorded video, "The DSP is Open", is now online and the links are shared on the LUGRadio Live forums. I'm caught speaking about DSP, Open Source + TI devices, and the Beagle Board. The slides are on-line here, as they are a bit difficult to read on the video.

Distros for Beagle

Some may think of the Beagle Board as just another embedded eval board, but its capabilities lie much closer to those of a computer. And as a computer, Beagle needs an OS. Though we are already running Linux, and it’s fine, there’s still something missing. Beagle needs a distro.

On your PC you might use Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo, or another distro out there, and Beagle needs one as well. Currently, Beagle is already running Angstrom (OE) (thanks Koen!), but why not get involved early and help Beagle run Ubuntu ARM (Mojo), Fedora ARM, Gentoo ARM, or even ARMedslack?

Beagle patches integrated in upstream OMAP community Linux kernel

Thanks to Khasim Syed Mohammed, the recent OMAP community Linux kernel now contains basic patches for the Beagle board! For initial boot of Linux on Beagle you don't have to apply any additional patches, just download the community OMAP Linux kernel using git, do "make omap3_beagle_defconfig", and enjoy booting your new kernel on Beagle.

Khasim is just getting us started. Expect to see other community members contributing patches to provide additional functionality on the Beagle board soon.

LUGRadio Live USA 2008

A few people got to play with Beagle at LugRadio Live USA 2008. One attendee even did a small write-up in Chinese on Beagle and what else he saw at LRL. There was quite a bit of interest from many people who have never thought of "embedded/ARM" development before. I was a bit more surprised by how many developers are getting more interested in solutions that allow them to embedded their solutions, Linux and otherwise, into many new places as can only be done with small, low-power devices and boards.

My presentation, "The DSP is Open", is available on-line. Keep your eyes out for video posts to show up on the LugRadio Forums.