March 19, 2012   Posted by: Dr. Ace Jeangle

How to install and configure Debian/Ubuntu on Beagleboard (xM), BeagleBone, and Pandaboard (ES)

Below is the simplest instruction of installing and configuring Debian/Ubuntu with LCD support.

  • Go to https://github.com/RobertCNelson/netinstall, select required distro and proceed with mk_mmc.sh script. It will automatically download required files and configure minimal working system on your SD card.
  • Then, go to “boot” partition of your SD card, find file “uEnv.txt” and change parameter “dvimode” for 10″ AUO LCD (1024×600) and 7″ CPT LCD (1024×600, resistive touch):

    "dvimode=1024x600MR-16@60"
    

    or for 10″ LG LCD (1280×800, black frame) and new gen 7″ panels (1280×800, capacitive touch):

    "dvimode=1280x800MR-16@60"
    
45 comments posted in: How-To
45 comments
  1. Antti
    Mar 19, 2012

    Thank you so much for this, I was getting desperate when nothing I did seemed to have any effect on anything. Now, great success.

    • Dr. Ace Jeangle
      Mar 19, 2012

      You are welcome. Next time drop me email to support@chalk-elec.com in case of any technical issues.

  2. Mariem
    Mar 20, 2012

    Hi,

    I’m doing a project using OpenCV and I want to embedded this on a pandaboard. So
    I’m looking for someone who can help me to install ubuntu on Pandabord rev A3.

    If you have some link or if you can advise me I would appreciate.

    Thanks in advance.

    Best Regards

  3. Jack
    Mar 22, 2012

    I built ICS from AOSP.com (not thru linaro). Has anyone any idea on how to get the LCD running via this route? I am googling around and no such luck.

    Thanks!

  4. James
    Mar 22, 2012

    Great guide, this really helped me a lot. Just have one question does anyone know how to get a gui going with this? I tried gnome but it hung during setup. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

    –James

  5. Mike Kopack
    Mar 28, 2012

    Tried this out, and WOW, YES, MUCH MUCH faster… and considerably smaller memory footprint than the Ubuntu 11.10 image…

    However, I had a few questions:

    1) Does this have the TI OMAP4 drivers installed in it?

    2) assuming #1 is yes, does the WLAN + BT work? I couldn’t figure out how.

    3) I wasn’t getting any display out on my HDMI monitor. The only way I could interact with the system was through the serial console.

    Any hints???

  6. marietto
    Mar 30, 2012

    I have no problem on the ubuntu 11.10 and with the Pandaboard ES by setting the display resolution. Also I’ve been able to make work the internal Bluetooth and wi-fi.

    • Dr. Ace Jeangle
      Mar 30, 2012

      Please, post instructions – this will help to many guys here.

    • dinesh
      Apr 12, 2012

      I have some problems in configuring Bluetooth. can u give me the steps for configuring and driver details for bluetooth set up

  7. siam
    Apr 04, 2012

    Hi Dr.Ace,
    we just installed debian following yout script integrating whit this http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardDebian but we are facing problem with bluetooth.
    ” Beagle/Panda: v3.2.13-x7 kernel (panda bluetooth now works “sudo apt-get install bluetooth” + “uim” to get all the userspace programs)
    uim: git clone git://gitorious.org/uim/uim.git ; cd uim ; make ; sudo make install

    add: /etc/udev/rules.d/bluetooth.rules

    ACTION==”add”, SUBSYSTEM==”platform”, ENV{MODALIAS}==”platform:kim”, RUN+=”/sbin/initctl emit enable-ti-bt”

    But we are not able to start BT, any suggest?

    • Dr. Ace Jeangle
      Apr 04, 2012

      Please, check post – I have updated it.
      This image is maintained by Robert Nelson (www.rcn-ee.com) and he mentioned that bluetooth is working in latest image.

  8. siam
    Apr 06, 2012

    please note that you “wget 2012-03-08” but “tar 2012-03-29” .

    • Dr. Ace Jeangle
      Apr 06, 2012

      Thanks! Updated.

  9. Tania Lorena
    Apr 12, 2012

    Hi,

    I want to thank you for this distro, it is working well on my pandaboard es. You said that Touchscreen driver is also available in this distro, but I don’t know how configure it and if I can display some GUI on the touchscreen. Please help me.

  10. sirtet
    Apr 20, 2012

    I need only framebuffer and no x window, so that’s great!
    Just, is there an easy way to enable wifi?

    • Dr. Ace Jeangle
      Apr 24, 2012

      I think new version has WiFi enabled, but i didn’t checked myself.

      • sirtet
        Apr 25, 2012

        yes, sorry, did ont know about iwconfig, now i need to learn how to get connected…

  11. EO
    May 04, 2012

    Image unpacked and downloaded on SD card with mentioned command:
    sudo ./setup_sdcard.sh –mmc /dev/sdb –uboot panda

    Still not working on my Pandaboard. Do I need any extra command to make it work on my pandaboard ?

    Any specific setting for HDMI for example? Because my pandaboard does not have an DVI connection.

  12. GeelC
    May 07, 2012

    Thank you very much for this. Sorry, I’m a newbie… I’ve Tried, It seems to boot. But what are login and password? Thanks

    • Tommi
      May 21, 2012

      root/root got me in. Remember to create another user for everyday use.

  13. Tommi
    May 21, 2012

    Which package is the touchscreen driver in?

    • Dr. Ace Jeangle
      May 21, 2012

      Device Drivers –> HID Devices –> Special HID drivers –> HID Multitouch panels
      File hid-multitouch.c

  14. Florian Pfanner
    May 28, 2012

    Hello,

    thank you for this. Unfortunatly my board does not behave as easy as described: I prepared the SD card as shown. After pluging in the card into my Pandaboard, nothing happens (no console output, only on of the two LEDs lights up, …)
    My solution: I mounted the first partition of the SD card on my PC and saved the content. Then I deleted this partition and created a fresh one. After setting the boot-flag and FAT32 formating, I copied the saved content back. (I’m not sure if it was necessary, but the first file I stored in the new partition was MLO.)

    Now I’m very happy to run Debian on my Pandaboard 😉

    Best regards,
    Florian

  15. Alastor
    May 28, 2012

    Thank you very much – installng Debian was the easiest and quickest installation I ever had.
    I see there are a lot of comments about HDMI and WiFi. Both of them work. Please feel free to look at my post. I hope I have some answers:
    http://alastordmcblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-to-install-debian-on-pandaboard-do.html

    • Dr. Ace Jeangle
      May 29, 2012

      Thanks for valuable add-on! I have added link to your post for others customers.

      • Alastor
        May 29, 2012

        Thanks ! I just saw people asking those questions. I am very pleased with Debian.

  16. yushiyao
    Aug 01, 2012

    it is very helpful, but I have some question. I use the HDMI, and I don’t know how to change the resolution ratio,can you help me ?

    • Dr. Ace Jeangle
      Aug 06, 2012

      HDMI has I2C interface to read EDID information from monitor, so you don’t have to set resolution manually.

  17. fado
    Aug 03, 2012

    Is it possible to use the display with pandaES and ubuntu 12.04?
    How to?

    Thanks!

    • Dr. Ace Jeangle
      Aug 06, 2012

      Yes. You can get ubuntu image from this link:
      http://rcn-ee.net/deb/rootfs/

      • Fado
        Aug 28, 2012

        Is it possible to use the ubuntu prebuilt binaries? I’ve tryed to add bootargs omapfb.mode=dvi:1024x600MR-16@60 omapdss.def_disp=dvi but it doesn’t work.

        Thanks

        • Fado
          Aug 29, 2012

          p.s: I’m using omapdrm/kms .
          Thanks
          BR

          • Dr. Ace Jeangle
            Aug 29, 2012

            For KMS please look at section “Forcing Modes” here: http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/KernelModeSetting

          • Fado
            Aug 29, 2012

            “video=DVI-D-1:1024×600@60” It doesn’t work.
            Do you know if someone succeeded where I have failed?
            Thanks!

          • Max
            Sep 04, 2012

            I works for me. I just followed the instructions above. Make sure that all your connections are right and don’t plug anything in the HDMI and DVI ports before booting the panda es. Also, be patient after you plug it, the screen may takes some time before it is turned on. I used the ubuntu version 12.04 rev5 from the link above.

          • Fado
            Sep 05, 2012

            Thanks for your reply. The issue is related to another image. The ubuntu image in the link above use omapfb and the chalk-elec lcd display works fine with that, but not with omapdrm/kms…

          • くまだす
            Oct 29, 2012

            I tried with prebuilt image and partly succeeded. Install TI OMAP Release PPA updated October. After booting, setup correct resolution with GUI. It enables my 10″ display. But without connecting another display to DVI port, it doesn’t show. Edit /boot/boot.script like video=DVI-D-1:1280×800 then it displays only during booting kernel. Can’t display desktop without another display. Do you have any suggestion?
            kumadasu

  18. Fado
    Aug 29, 2012

    video=DVI-D-1:1024×600@60. It doesn’t work.

    Do you know someone succeeded where I have failed?

    Thanks

  19. Dr. Ace Jeangle
    Jan 07, 2013

    Here are working parameters from my Beaglebone patch:

    .width=1280
    .height=800
    .hfp=64
    .hbp=124
    .hsw=48
    .vfp=5
    .vbp=12
    .vsw=7
    .pxl_clk=75000000
    .invert_pxl_clk=0

  20. […] from rcn-ee.net. Then unpack and install to the sdcard. A more detailed explanation is given at Howto config and install Debian. This page was the base for my tests. I simply changed the given download location to the newest […]

  21. Dr. Ace Jeangle
    Jan 31, 2013

    You can simply install all required packages (including X11) with apt-get command. FOr example, “sudo apt-get install lightdm” will install standard Ubuntu GUI manager.

  22. Dr. Ace Jeangle
    Feb 06, 2013

    Send email to support@ with dmesg log, I will try to check.

    • Nilesh Mane
      Feb 13, 2013

      I have got Ubuntu11.04 and kernel 2.6.38 for PandaBoard-Es wich is wirking fine with 7″lcd and all my basic requirements. Just now i want to change lcd from 7″ to chalkboard 11″ LCD as i use for Pandaboard(4430). I have done same change in drivers/video/omap2/displays/panel-generic-dpi.c as i do for pandaboard. that change xres and yres 1366 and 768. and recompiled everything was fine except that there are few horizontal lins blinking at top (aprox 70-120 Ypos). Then i have checked for 10″ lcd with 1280×800 resolution here is also same problem. And same uImage(11inch) is working fine with Pandaboard(4430) without any blinking line on 11inch LCD.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Follow us