missing USB device port on Black

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1

Hi,
To me being able to run with just an USB cable (and a computer) was one of the nicest feature of the Beaglebone and not available on Raspberry Pi.
Now with Black we are back to old times, where there is a number of extras required (power supply, serial to USB converter/cable, ethernet cable, …)
to be able to do anything.
It is a dissapointment IMHO.
Jan

2

You’ll still be able to run it with a single cable. You only need the serial/USB converter cable if you need to debug the startup process.

3

Hi,
To me being able to run with just an USB cable (and a computer) was one of
the nicest feature of the Beaglebone and not available on Raspberry Pi.

That onboard usb-serial ftdi chip was also one of the most painful
features, fire up gtkterm/screen to early and it would fail to
connect.. The raw 3.3V ttl is SOOO much easier to deal with when
developing..

Now with Black we are back to old times, where there is a number of extras
required (power supply, serial to USB converter/cable, ethernet cable, ...)

to be able to do anything.
It is a dissapointment IMHO.

Disappointment? Honestly be real, how would "you" fix "(power supply,
serial to USB converter/cable, ethernet cable, ...)" and remember we
live in the real world... Things cost money..

Regards,

4

I will not be able to run the Ethernet over USB with that single cable, which was another great feature.

5

You can still run "Ethernet over USB" just no "serial" channel..

Regards,

6

Heck i take that back to, with the right config enabled:

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/usb/gadget/Kconfig#n820

You can still have "Ethernet/Serial over USB" just no serial during
the initial bootup phase..

Regards,

7

I found it hard at first to see but there still is a “Client USB” on the underside of the board, it just doesn’t seem to be in any photos.

The SRM( https://github.com/CircuitCo/BeagleBone-Black/blob/master/BBB_SRM.pdf?raw=true ) states:

5.5
PC USB Interface

The board has a miniUSB connector that connects the USB0 port to the processor. This is
the same connector as used on the original BeagleBone.

also:

5.3.5
Boot Modes

As mentioned earlier, there are four boot modes: …

… USB Boot…This mode supports booting over the USB port

Software to support USB and serial boot modes is not provided by beagleboard.org.
Please contact TI for support of this feature.

A switch is provided to allow switching between the modes.

 Holding the boot switch down during boot without a SD card inserted will
force the boot source to be the USB port and if nothing is detected on the USB
client port, it will go to the serial port for download.
 Without holding the switch, the board will boot from eMMC. If it is empty,
then it will try booting from the uSD slot, followed by the serial port, and then
the USB port.