After installing openembedded from these directions, I’ve successfully compiled the helloworld-image target and have it running on my beagleboard! After running bitbake helloworld-image and bitbake virtual/kernel and finding something else to do for a few hours while everything compiled, I had a usable rootfs and kernel image. I already had my SD card partitioned, so I just erased the old Ångstrom image and copied the new stuff over.

To install the image to the SD card (Where BUILDDIR is the directory form which you ran bitbake, MMC_BOOT is the boot partition on your MMC card, and MMC_ROOT is the root partition:

1. Go to BUILDDIR/tmp/deploy/glibc/images/beagleboard
2. cp MLO-beagleboard /media/MMC_BOOT/MLO
3. cp u-boot-beagleboard.bin /media/MMC_BOOT/u-boot.bin
4. cp uImage-beagleboard.bin /media/MMC_BOOT/uImage
5. cd /media/MMC_ROOT
6. sudo tar -xvf BUILDDIR/tmp/deploy/glibc/images/beagleboard/helloworld-image-beagleboard.tar

Boot time is about 8 seconds from when it starts to unpack the kernel to executing userspace code.

Well, today I got Günter Geiger’s PDa version of Pure Data compiled on the Beagle Board. I haven’t gotten HDMI output to work properly to my TV so I’m relying on X-forwarding for the GUI, which is pretty painfully slow at the moment, but I did get some sound out. Here are the steps I took:

1. Install libtk-dev and libtcl-dev packages using opkg. I had to use the -force-depends option because opkg complained about some missing dependencies. Hope it doesn’t come back to bite me later.
2. Install the compiler packages gcc and gcc-symlinks
3. Download the source code from here.
4. Unpack the source into a directory of your choosing
5. Edit the makefile in the src subdirectory and change libtk8.4.a to libtk8.4.so and libtcl8.4.a to libtcl8.4.so
6. type “make”

You should now have a pd executable in the bin subdirectory.

I have just received a beagleboard, flyswatter JTAG, 4GB SD card, USB ethernet adapter, and USB hub. Everything I should need to get started with embedded development.

I created the proper filesystem setup on the SD card as per these instructions, and installed koen’s demo image for the Ångstrom embedded linux distribution.

After hooking up the Flyswatter to the serial connector through the Flyswatter/Beagleboard adapter I got a boot prompt. My TV is complaining that it doesn’t recognize the input format, so I’m probably going to have to figure out a custom modeline in the xorg.conf, but I can live with a command prompt for now.

For those unfamiliar, the Beagle Board is a platform for embedded development based on Texas Instruments’ OMAP3530 System-on-chip board. Basically it’s a computer three inches square. It has handy input and output connectors for easy experimentation. Stay tuned for updates.