How to get started with a Pandaboard (Rev #5)

A Basic Guide to Setting Up RISC OS on a Pandaboard ES

Introduction

People’s experiences in setting up their brand new Pandaboard seem to range from simply sailing through the set-up at one end of the scale to deep frustration and struggling to get anywhere at all at the other. My initial experiences were definitely of the latter type but, with some help from the ROOL Forum, I got there in the end.

This guide is based on a Pandaboard ES, Rev B3. It assumes at least a little knowledge of RISC OS – if you’re not confident in using RISC OS then this guide is a good place to start. Finally, these steps were gleaned from my own struggles and experiences – they worked for me and I hope they work for you too.

RISC OS on the Pandaboard boots from an SD card in a similar manner to RISC OS on the Raspberry Pi. The bootable SD card needs to contain two partitions; one FAT16 partition to contain the OMAP4 (Cortex A9) boot files and one RISC OS ‘filecore’ partition for all the RISC OS files. The instructions in this WiKi are intended to be used to create an SD card that boots in a Pandabaord and runs the RISC OS 5 operating system.

Prepare the SD Card

You’ll need an SD Card of at least 2GB, preferably larger than 4GB and preferably Class 10. The SD card should first be formatted to RISC OS FileCore format.

Before you ‘populate’ the SD card, you’ll need to download the required bootloader files – I downloaded mine from riscosports.co.uk. Follow the ‘Pandaboard boot firmware’ link (note: these files include u-boot.img, which you use instead of the u-boot.bin file mentioned in the SystemDisc tutorial linked to below. Please read the ReadMe file accompanying the bootloader files).

I found I also needed the CMOS file from openpandora.com:. It should also be copied into the bootloader partition as the same time as the other bootloader files.

The other software download you’ll need is ROOL’s HardDisc4 zip file.

Once you have downloaded all the required files you can start to set up your bootable SD card:

If you have Ben Avison’s SystemDisc follow the excellent instructions at Piccolo System’s SystemDisc Tutorial.

If you don’t have SystemDisc, or if you’d like to set up the card ‘by hand’ go to these alternative set-up instructions

Connect the Pandaboard

Things you’ll need in addition to your Pandaboard:

• A prepared SD card, as above.

• A regulated 5V DC power supply of at least 2.5 amps. Anything less than 2.5 amps and you are likely to experience problems with your keyboard and possibly unexplained random crashes. Note that if you use a powered USB hub for the keyboard and mouse, then a good 2.0 amp regulated 5V power supply should be sufficient.

• Either a HDMI cable if you have an HDMI capable monitor

or

• An HDMI to VGA converter. I can’t comment on all the different kinds of converter but at different times I’ve used an un-powered ‘Cable Matters’ and a powered ‘1080 Ultimate’ HDMI/VGA converter and both have worked all right for me.

Important: whatever you use, with RISC OS the HDMI cable or converter is connected to the outermost of the two output sockets at the rear of the Pandaboard. If you connect it to the inner one you won’t see anything on the screen!

• A powered USB Hub. My personal view is that this is almost an essential. The Pandaboard has only two main USB ports, at the rear of the board (unfortunately, at the time of writing the Pandaboard’s OTG USB port doesn’t work with RISC OS). Some people have reported experiencing difficulties, again mainly with the keyboard after connecting it via a rear port. In any case, 2 USB ports isn’t so many and it’s likely that sooner or later you’ll need to connect other USB devices.

• A USB Cable to connect the Pandaboard to the powered USB hub (if used).

• USB Keyboard and USB Mouse (or equivalents).

• Ethernet cable (if required).

• Speakers and microphone (if required).

• You may also need a memory stick, minimum 2GB. Although one formatted to FAT 32 works I found it very slow so one formatted to FileCore would be preferable (as to why you might need a memory stick, see ‘Booting Up for the First Time’ below).

If you’re more pictorially minded like me, there’s a diagram on the Pandaboard Connection Guide

Powering Up the Pandaboard

First, double check that everything is connected to whatever it needs to connect to. Refer to the connection guide above if needs be. Now power up the Pandaboard; it’s not as fast as booting into the Raspberry Pi – it takes around 20 seconds for the first text to appear on the HDMI monitor. When the Pandaboard is powered-on the D2 ‘status2’ LED lights up immediately, even without the bootable SD card fitted. During the RISC OS boot process D1 ‘status1’ also lights up for about 16 seconds. Then both LEDs D1 and D2 go out simultaneously and then stay out whilst RISC OS is active ?

It may be that you boot straight into the RISC OS desktop first time but if not then don’t worry – the next step should help. Either way, follow the remaining steps below.

Booting Up for the First Time

This is where I struggled most – hopefully you won’t have to!

At the time of writing, the RISC OS boot within the ROM image you downloaded earlier is set to boot from a SCSI device, such as a memory stick or removable USB disc drive. If you want to boot from a SCSI device then copy the HardDisc4 files you extracted from the HardDrive4 download onto the SCSI device and connect it to the Pandaboard via USB. By the way, in order to begin the boot process you’ll still need to insert the SD card you prepared before you power up the Pandaboard. If you don’t want to boot from an SD card, go to ‘Set Up Configuration and Save Changes’ below.

If you do want to boot from the SD card though and you get a ‘Waiting for Boot Drive’ message then you’ll first need to copy !Boot onto a memory stick, insert it into the USB hub and temporarily boot from that.

Once you’ve booted into RISC OS, you’ll need to set the device it’s to boot from in future so press the F12 key and you’ll enter the CLI (Command Line Interface, sometimes referred to as the Shell on other operating systems).

Type the following lines and press Return at the end of each (each line automatically begins with an asterisk)

*Configure Boot
*Configure FileSystem SDFS

After entering the last command, press return again and you’ll return to the desktop.

You’ve now told the computer to boot from SDFS (i.e. from the SD card). To make sure your changes are saved from boot to boot we’ll go to the final step:

Set Up Configuration and Save Changes

If needs be boot up from either your SCSI device or SD card. You’ll temporarily have two !Boot files, one on the SCSI device and one on the SD card – it’s the latter you want. Click on the SD icon on the icon bar then hold down Shift and double-click on !Boot. Find and open the Loader directory and then find and rename the uenv_cmos.txt file as uenv.txt (if there’s already a file called uenv.txt in the Loader directory, you’ll have to rename it to some thing like ex-uenve.txt or whatever first). Close the directory window.

Double click on !Boot again (without holding down Shift this time) and the Configuration window will open.

Alter any of the settings – such as mouse speed or screen resolution – as desired (if you’re not sure how to do that see the RISC OS tutorials).

NB if you get a Not Found error message when configuring your monitor resolution, click on the SCSI icon on the icon bar, double click on !Boot and configure it from there.

Once you’ve finished altering configuration settings, move your mouse pointer over the Configuration window, menu-click with your mouse and click on Save CMOS. Your CMOS settings should now be preserved for future boot-ups.

Test by rebooting the Pandaboard. If all’s well it will boot from your preferred device – SCSI or SD card – and any settings you made in Configure should remain.

NB if you need any further help, the ROOL Forum is extremely knowledgeable and friendly.