My experience.
I’ve purchased:
- a power supply
- a nano wireless dongle
- a micro HDMI - HDMI cable
- an HDMI - male DVI adapter
- a powered USB hub (four ports - switchable (on/off)
- usb keyboard
- wireless mouse
It came with micro USB - USB cable.
Trial and error got the main page (CONNECTED) working.
Interesting to find that (from Youtube) plugging in the nano dongle
turns the beagleboard ON.
Wasn’t working under Bodhi Linux. Could’'ve been the OS.
Could’ve also been the components connected to the Beagleboard.
Reduced the components to the bare minimum and removed the
complications of an existing OS by booting Live CD and trying it
that way. If it worked at all, seemed to suggest that less is better
at least in troubleshooting.
Haven’t been able to get the wireless dongle to work.
Frustrating in that it seems to (at least everything I’ve looked at)
be predicated upon ONE specific connection. Doesn’t seem to
(like Windows) be able to see a list of available connections from which
to choose. (Again, maybe I’m missing something.)
The Powered USB doesn’t work. Might be what I’ve got.
If I use a regular unpowered USB hub that works, but, in terms of
trying to setup external storage via an external drive, figure also:
keyboard, mouse, wireless dongle
and that doesn’t quite look like a viable alternative.
Also, as mentioned in a previous post, I haven’t been able to get
a Debian install to boot from Micro SD. Built in Angstrom works just
fine. Boots to login prompts but startx reports back “command not
found”. Again, maybe I’m doing something wrong.
So, so far, based on the advert, I haven’t been able to use the
beagleboard black to it’s full potential.
I’d like to use it as an educational tool. Understandably, before I
ask students to to it, I’d like to be able to do it myself. These are
just the basics nevermind the advanced stuff. But, if I can get past
the basics, I can begin tinkering with the more advanced possibilities
like the portable cape (battery operated), the weather cape, which isn’t
fully compatible yet, and the (looks super simple) temperature sensor
setup.
By comparison, I’ve played with the Raspberry Pi:
Changed OS.
Installed XBMC.
Configured for Headless connection.
Connected to HDMI as well as DVI monitor (with adapter).
Played around a little with Scratch - a LOT with Python.
And I HAVE logged in via SSH to the beagleboard and used the
Gateway for JS scripting, but, what I’ve saved and run hasn’t worked.
(And that’s no more than copying the script off the main page and then
saving it.)
Did a basic “hello world” test in Python. That worked.
Tried doing the same in JS (javascript). That didn’t.
The blinking LEDs worked.
(Wondering. Is there a morse code script for the LEDs? I’ve
seen an Arduino script for that - could it be adapted for the beagleboard
black? - Something that either allows for command line translation or
text file translation.)
Just one person’s views, experiences, ideas.
Got anything to add, clarify, suggest?
Feel free.