setting up BeagleY AI on HP laptop with microsoft 11

General Discussion
1

I am trying to set up a BeagleY AI on a computer with Windows 11 operating system. I thought it would be like a Raspberry Pi, but I can’t make any headway. I have the board and I have the micro SD card tool kit. I think I am way out of my wheelhouse. Can somebody help me get started? Thanks.

2

Download and install the beagleimager or since you already have RPI that will work too. Install the image.

https://files.beagle.cc/file/beagleboard-public-2021/images/beagley-ai-debian-12.5-xfce-arm64-2024-06-26-12gb.img.xz

FYI, the BeagleY has an issue with SD cards. So use a sandisk (red/gray color) 32 gb if the SD you have will not boot. It is hit and miss with the sd cards so keep that in mind too if it does not boot.

Another note, this is a long winded boot with out any kernel messages or splash screen, the mouse pointer will come up first then the desktop will appear. The heartbeat is the bootloader running and the kernel loading then the desktop will come up.

3

Thank you. The SD card in the kit from Seeed Studio was a Sandisk but I have ordered a new card. What happens is Balena runs through the flashing process with the file and then does the checkdisk process. Right at the very end, the error message is that imaging failed. I have tried it multiple times. When I look at the directory for the SD card, it has wingding text for file names and 0 data in the files.

I tried using bb-imager but it won’t open on my computer. I tried using PeaZip to open the imager but that was a dumpster fire. I know I am missing a step.

4

Yeah, newer versions of Balena seem to fail with our *.img.xz on Windows 11…

You’ll need to use https://www.7-zip.org/ to decompress it from *.img.xz to *.img… Then Belena worked for me.

The other options while we fight qt5 libraries on Windows… Use the rpi-imager with the ‘use custom’ option… Once rpi-imager is done, you’ll need to eject and re-insert the microSD card… Find the boot partition and change the variables in sysconf.txt (user_password) to what you want…

Regards,

5

Maybe try rufus, I have been using it to flash my BBAI64 SD cards from windows

6

Making sure I understand the steps:
Download the .img.xz
Download 7-zip and install
Decompress the img.xz file to img
Use Balena to flash the SD card
Find boot partition on SD card and change variable in sysconf

I tried a version on 7-zip but I must have gotten it off a different website because it would only decompress five files before I had to pay for it.

7

Yuck! That’s why I had the link in my post.

Regards,