Boot Desktop PC from BBB's usb client

Bradley_Matusiak · April 29, 2014, 12:30pm

i had a dream last night, i was booting a OS on a Desktop, from my beaglebone’s usb client’s flash, is then even possible?

jkridner · April 29, 2014, 1:17pm

i had a dream last night, i was booting a OS on a Desktop, from my
beaglebone's usb client's flash, is then even possible?

What an interesting idea. It is possible as the BIOS on many desktop
machines allow for booting from a USB drive. The format of the eMMC/uSD on
your BeagleBone would need to change to have it hold a bootable operating
system image for your desktop.

Installation/FromUSBStick - Community Help Wiki is one example
of bootable images.

Note that you'd still need to somehow boot your BeagleBone into a mode
where it serves up the flash image. If you are powering the BeagleBone off
of the USB power from the desktop, you'll need to find some way to delay
the boot of the desktop until the BeagleBone finishes booting and starts
serving up the drive image.

I imagine the easiest way using a BeagleBone Black would be to:
a) put the desktop image on a uSD card
b) alter the BeagleBone software configuration to serve up the uSD card (or
a file on the uSD card) instead of the partition on the eMMC

The place where (b) is currently done is in /opt/scripts/boot/am335x_evm.sh,
sourced from [1] called from [2]:

modprobe g_multi file=${gadget_partition} cdrom=0 stall=0 removable=1 nofua=1
iSerialNumber=${SERIAL_NUMBER} iManufacturer=Circuitco iProduct=BeagleBone${
BLACK} host_addr=${cpsw_1_mac}

${gadget_partition} says where the file/partition is that is shared. You
might need to change the "cdrom=0" line as well as you might need to make
the image look like a CD-ROM for it to be bootable, but I'd have to
research that a bit more.

Hope this is helpful. Please let us all know what success you have if you
try this.

[1]

github.com

RobertCNelson/boot-scripts/blob/master/boot/am335x_evm.sh#L76


      
          detected_capes=$(cat /proc/cmdline | sed 's/ /\n/g' | grep uboot_detected_capes= || true)
          if [ ! "x${detected_capes}" = "x" ] ; then
          	got_DLPDLCR2000=$(echo ${detected_capes} | grep DLPDLCR2000 || true)
          	if [ ! "x${got_DLPDLCR2000}" = "x" ] ; then
          		echo "${log} found: DLPDLCR2000 init display"
          		i2cset -y 2 0x1b 0x0b 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 i || true
          		i2cset -y 2 0x1b 0x0c 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x1b i || true
          	fi
          fi
          
          usb_gadget="/sys/kernel/config/usb_gadget"
          
          #  idVendor           0x1d6b Linux Foundation
          #  idProduct          0x0104 Multifunction Composite Gadget
          #  bcdDevice            4.04
          #  bcdUSB               2.00
          
          usb_idVendor="0x1d6b"
          usb_idProduct="0x0104"
          usb_bcdDevice="0x0404"
          usb_bcdUSB="0x0200"

[2]
https://github.com/beagleboard/image-builder/blob/master/target/init_scripts/generic-debian.sh#L52

Bradley_Matusiak · May 7, 2014, 11:20pm

i invoked "sudo modprobe g_multi file=/home/ubuntu/bootup.img cdrom=0 removable=1 ro=1’ on startup

booted iso, and img formats and does not work for dmg file formats,

i added a node js website and a simple X interface that loads chrome,

the website sets the bootup.img using a symbolic link and reboots

ive tested memtest86 usb img, debian amd64 iso, snowleopard retail dmg