Beagle IRC questions: Answered

This is my first of many post to come regarding unanswered questions on the BeagleBoard IRC logs. The format will be as follows:

[link] answer and info.
-name-

* The link will be the reference to the question or issue. The "-name-" will be reserved for the person who answered the question/provided the information.

[18:16:02] Some SD cards do not work because the Beagle is 3Volts and some cards want 3.3Volts, even though 3Volts is within specs.

-Gerald Coley-

Also, some of the less expensive SD cards at Fry's (Patriot brand) have been known to have trouble booting. It seems that MicroCenter house brand cards work better.

-Bernie Thompson-

Sometimes faulty SD cards work if you reformat the SD card and recopy the information.
-Gerald Coley-

[19:32:11] Opkg error 2 occurs when there is either a network connection issue or a spelling error.

-Jason Kridner-

[08:02:49] If a RX line on beagleboard is having hardware problems, then RMA is the only way to fix it. You can check if it is bad by following the diagnostic page on the wiki.
-Gerald Coley-

[08:10:47] If you test the serial connection on the BeagleBoard and nothing echos in the terminal, then follow the test in the Rev B5 System Reference Manual. It will show you how to make sure that everything is correct, including your cables.

-Gerald Coley-

[11:30:38] TP22 is a test point that allows you to use a scope to see the RX signal from the level shifter to the serial port. You can find it by tracing the signals found in the layout files or by looking in the System Reference Manual's figure 78.

-Gerald Coley-

[14:42:21] [14:47:36] If the RX line of rs232 suddenly stops working, the TX line continues to work, and you are unable to send anything via the serial port, then it could mean that the level shifter has failed. To fix it you will need to request an RMA to get the board repaired. Further explanation and information can be found in the BeagleBoard Errata.
-Gerald Coley-

[18:16:42]Options for POP memory to go ontop of an OMAP include Elpida, Numonyx, Samsung, Qimonda, and Hynix depending on what is being looked for.

-Gerald Coley-

[18:17:10]Micron information is easily available. You can also contact Mr. Coley at gerald@beagleboard.org . Micron is working on a public website and it should be up soon.
-Gerald Coley-

[12:13:30] The BeagleBoard does not have a back-up battery for the clock calendar. More detail can be found in the System Reference Manual.
-Gerald Coley-

[11:57:32] ID pins must be grounded in order for the USB OTG to go into host mode.

-Gerald Coley-

[17:01:56] There is a free OrCAD viewer you can use to that allows clear, magnified reading of the BeagleBoard schematics. Otherwise you can contact Gerald at gerald@beagleboard.org and he can provide you with the PDF files.
-Gerald Coley-

[21:49:09] Some possibilties for PoP capable maufacturers include DDI, MEI, and Streamline.

-Gerald Coley-

[03:11:51] On some Rev B4s, epoxy may be found on the U9 chip (it may be easily mistaken as a burnt out chip). The epoxy was used in an attempt to help fix the U9/U11 issue, but was unsucessful. Such Rev B4s may not boot properly. If this is the case, follow the RMA process, send it back for repair, and it will be fixed.

-Gerald Coley-

[20:42:44] A beagleboard can NOT provide 1080P. 720P is the most that the BeagleBoard can support.
-Gerald Coley-

11/04/2008

[18:55:26] Rev C beagleboards have not yet been released.

10/24/2008

[15:33:02]"strace" stands for "system call trace". [17:57:35]OMAP3 includes an ARM Cortex-A8 which uses the ARMv7 instruction set. OMAP3 is not ARM 11 based. ARM11 is the previous generation of ARM processors and uses the ARMv6 instruction set. The ARM Cortex-A8 is capable of running all ARMv6 instructions as well as ARMv7 instructions which provide some memory savings advantages without any significant loss in performance. The ARM Cortex-A8 is the first super-scalar ARM and is capable of executing 2 instructions per clock cycle.

10/20/08

[03:56:39] emeb_mac stated that not all DSPs are vector-based. [04:21:12] Emeb_mac also stated that FEC stands for Forward Error Connection. [13:41:00] Crofton said that cmem is the thing that allocates contiguous memory.

FYI: BeagleBoard IRC channel

The entire IRC logs are questions and answers. Most of the questions are troubleshooting. Occasionally, nobody is able to help the person or answer the question. Rarely is the case when a troubleshooting problem is not solved. Most unanswered questions are request for information (ex. Has such-and-such been made?) or a request for experience-oriented help (ex. Has anybody worked with the angstrom demo and tried such –and-such). There are still a lot of unanswered questions, but most of these questions are left unresponsive. Sometimes, when a person’s question has no response they ask again later, and get an answer, which leads me to believe that nobody on the channel saw the question when it was first posted. This is where the bulk of the unanswered questions come from.

10/17/08 - 10/18/08

[18:15:39] BThompson pointed out that the difference between a mini-A USB and a mini-B USB, is that the mini-A has angled edges on the bottom, whereas the mini-B has a square edge on the bottom. Also, mini-B is able to work in "client mode". Mini-A would cause the client mode to fail.

[02:52:17] Nathanm mentioned that some monitors are picky about frequencies, and may be responsible for an error message "mode not supported". [15:25:53] According to mru, X-loader is responsible for loading U-boot and the "ROM loader loads X-loader into sram. X-loader can then set up dram and load U-boot there." [15:28:23] Contrary to what the IRC log says, IVA stands for Interaction Value Analysis. It is a mathmatical model of orginizational behavior. For more information see http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/BeagleRelatedTerminology?ts=1224532762&updated=BeagleRelatedTerminology. Additionally, IVA can also stand for the imaging and video accelerator block that includes the C64x+ DSP in the OMAP35x applications processors.

10/15/08 - 10/17/08

[17:35:10] A Segmentation Fault (SegFault) is an error that can occur durring the operation of computer software. It occurs when a program attempts to access a memory location in a non-permissible way, or when it is not allowed to be accessed. [07:40:53] Kulve explained on October 16th, that ES3.0 is an engineering sample usually of the CPU. It is basically a version number of the chip.

[14:14:30] Duke Nukem is the name of a game series. This series includes Duke Nukem, Duke Nukem II, and Duke Nukem 3D. The first two Duke Nukem's were platform-games. The first Duke Nukem was a sidescroller for the GameBoy Color. Duke Nukem 3D, is a first person shooter computer game and is the third game of the series.