Lab1 - Communication between BeagleBoard and host machine using Minicom

Objective: A successful communication between Linux and BeagleBoard using Minicom terminal.

Requirements:

Procedures:

(1) Installation of Minicom

In this LAB, first you need to install Minicom so you can communicate with Beagle Board. Minicom is a text-based modem control and terminal emulation program for Unix-like operating systems.

If you are using CentOS or Fedora then you can type following command to install minicom. You need to perform this installation as a root.

$ su

$ yum install minicom

If you are using Ubuntu as a guest Linux OS then you need to type following command.

$ sudo aptget install minicom

(2) Connect to Beagle board

Following Snapshot shows required cable wiring for Lab1. You need to IDC10 cable to the board and use DB9F Null modem cable as an intermediate cable to connect to USB to Serial cable. Then USB to serial cable can be connected to a Laptop. If you are using PC then you do not need USB to serial cable since PC has serial port and you can directly connect to COM port of PC.

Also if you are using older version of Windows as a Host machine then you need to install driver for USB to serial cable.

Installation of Minicom
Connect to Beagle board
Configure Minicom
Run minicom as root and test

VMware Player or Vmware Server or VMware Workstation
Linux - CentOS or Ubuntu
Internet connection is successfully established in virtual machine. Change network adapter setting of Linux virtual machine to NAT, so guest Linux operating system can use Host’s IP address. In this way you can easily get an internet connection in your newly created Linux virtual machine.
Beagle Board (Rev C4) having OMAP 3530 core CPU with 5V power adapter.
USB to Serial cable if you are using Laptop since it doesn’t have serial port.

Snapshot 1 [Ref. [4]]

(3) Configure Minicom

If you are using Minicom first time, you need to set up its configuration and save it as a default configuration. So next time you can directly use default configuration and no need to set all parameters again.

To open Minicom configuration window write following command.

$ minicom -s

You will get the screen as below.

Snapshot 2

Serial Port setup: By using Up and Down arrow key you can select Serial port setup option and you can see the following screen.

Snapshot 3

(i) Selecting Serial Device:

If you already connected beagle board as shown in Snapshot 1, then you can find USB/Serial (Laptop/PC) port then you can find it using dmsg command. I am experimenting with my notebook so I need to find which USB port is connected to Beagle Board.

$ dmesg | grep ttyUSB

Following screen display the result when Beagle Board is disconnected with my notebook.

Snapshot 4

When you connect it shows the result as below. Based on that you can decide which serial port you can configure among ttyUSB0 or ttyUSB1.

Snapshot 5

Based on above result I need to change serial device to ttyUSB0.

Press A to change serial device to ttyUSB0.

Snapshot 6

(ii) Baud Rate Setting (Bps/Par/Bits):

Now press E to change those settings:

Snapshot 7

You should get 115200 8N1, press keys I, L, Q, V and W.

Now in the previous screen, press F to set Hardware Flow Control to Off. The result is shown in Snapshot 3. When you're done, press Enter to leave this screen.

Then, in Snapshot 3 option window select “Save Setup as dfl”