Ascending Technologies CoreExpress User manual
CoreExpress Carrierboard Manual v1.0
-1-
CoreExpress Carrierboard Manual v1.0
Contents
1 System Overview 3
1.1 StatusLEDs........................................... 3
1.2 Interfaces ............................................ 3
1.2.1 USBPorts ....................................... 3
1.2.2 MiniPCIexpressPort ................................. 3
1.2.3 MicroSD-CardPort .................................. 3
1.2.4 UARTPorts....................................... 3
1.2.5 DisplayConnector ................................... 3
2 Preinstalled Ubuntu on micro SD card 6
2.1 Login .............................................. 6
2.2 Drivers ............................................. 6
2.2.1 Wifi........................................... 6
2.2.2 USBClientport .................................... 6
2.2.3 Graphics ........................................ 6
3 Installation of Linux on SD card 8
3.1 Installation ........................................... 8
3.2 EnableBootfromSDcard ................................... 8
3.3 FurtherNotes .......................................... 8
4 Contact Information 9
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CoreExpress Carrierboard Manual v1.0
1 System Overview
1.1 Status LEDs
green Power
orange SD-Card r/w access
red UART transfer
blue Status of connected mini PCIe device
1.2 Interfaces
1.2.1 USB Ports
•Ports 7 and 8 support USB 2.0 devices only.
Most keyboards/mouses might not work on these
ports. All other ports support USB 1.1 as well as
USB 2.0.
•Port 8 is shared with the mini-PCIexpress con-
nector. See 1.2.2.
•Port 3 can be configured in the BIOS either as
client or host port. This port is not powered, i.e.
the client/host has to be powered externally. The
port is set up as client port as default.
•Each port can source 500 mA. Permanent load
on all ports should not exceed 1000 mA. Peak
load should be at maximum 2000 mA.
1.2.2 Mini PCI express Port
According to the mini PCIexpress specification, this
port is equipped with one PCIexpress lane and one
USB port. Which port is used depends on the design
of the mini PCIexpress module. In case it uses USB,
USB port 8 is occupied by this module and must not
be connected to any other device.
1.2.3 Micro SD-Card Port
The SD card interface is SDHC compatible allowing
you to use Micro SD-cards >2 GB. The port is inter-
nally connected to the System Controller Hub directly
and not via USB. Therefore r/w operations have no
influence on the USB bus as it would be the case for
Atom N2xx series processors. The BIOS is able to
boot from SD cards.
1.2.4 UART Ports
The board is equipped with a dual port FTDI
(FT2232) serial to USB converter that is connected
internally to USB port 1. Under Linux, both UARTs
appear as /dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyUSB1.
Pinout on the 10-pos DF13 mini-connector (as seen
from the CoreExpress module):
Pin Name
1 TXD
2 RXD
3 RTS
4 CTS
5 DTR
Pin Name
6 DSR
7 DCD
8 RI
9 +5V
10 GND
A flashing LED (red) next to the connector indicates
data transfer.
1.2.5 Display Connector
On this connector, you can connect LVDS displays
for debug/installation purposes such as our display
available as accessory. The LVDS port supports 18
and 24 bit color displays. Power for backlight and
backlight enable/brightness signals are available as
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CoreExpress Carrierboard Manual v1.0
well. In case you want to connect your own LVDS
display, please contact us for further information.
To connect/disconnect the display, always power off
the system! Otherwise, the LVDS port or the display
could be damaged permanently.
In order to work with the display, connect the grey
ribbon cable of the display to the display connector
(white) on the carrierboard and switch on the carrier-
board.
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CoreExpress Carrierboard Manual v1.0
UART1 MicroSD
slot UART0
USB3
USB2
Display
connector
(LVDS)
Power
switch
USB4
USB5
USB6
Figure 1.1: Carrierboard top view
miniPCI
Express
Aux.
power
Extension
connector
USB7
USB8
Figure 1.2: Carrierboard bottom view
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CoreExpress Carrierboard Manual v1.0
2 Preinstalled Ubuntu on micro SD card
To make the start easier, we already preinstalled
Ubuntu 9.04 on a 8 GB micro SD card.
2.1 Login
The OS boots to a console login by default.
•User: asctec
•Password: asctec
To start the grahical user interface, run startx.
Serial console login Alternatively, you can login
via a serial console (38400, 8, N, 1) on UART1.
tty6 is configured to output/receive commands on
/dev/ttyUSB1.
2.2 Drivers
2.2.1 Wifi
The stock dirvers coming with Ubuntu 9.04 still
have issues with the support of 801.11n for the
latest wireless LAN cards. Therefore, we com-
piled and installed the drivers from http://www.
linuxwireless.org/. We recommend the use
of WLAN devices with Atheros chipsets because
Linux driver support seems to be the best. A list of
supported devices is also available at http://www.
linuxwireless.org/
If you update your kernel, please download the latest
version of the Linux wireless driver that is suitable to
the new kernel version, install the kernel-headers and
compile and install the new driver version.
We removed the GNOME Networkmanager and in-
stalled the networkmanager wicd instead. wicd runs
more stable and runs as a service. You can config-
ure it with a GUI to automatically connect to you de-
sired wireless network. Once configured properly, the
connection will be established without having to log
into your system locally. Depending on your wireless
device, one of the blue status LEDs indicates that a
connection is established.
Attention: Wireless networks secured with WEP do
not support 802.11n speed! Either use unsecured
wireless networks or better WPA(2) secured networks
with AES encryption.
2.2.2 USB Client port
You can use the USB client port (port 3) to act ei-
ther as mass storage device or as a networking device
using the Linux-USB Gadget API Framework, which
is already installed. For a full documentation, see
http://www.linux-usb.org/gadget.
Additionally, to make the gedget drivers working with
the USB-client port, you need to patch and recompile
your kernel. The patch and a manual is located in the
folder “intel.com” on the Desktop of the user asctec.
2.2.3 Graphics
The Intel GMA500 graphics card is not supported by
Ubuntu 9.04 by default. Therefore,
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/
ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/
ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
was added to the repositories list
and the packages psb-firmware
psb-modules psb-kernel-source
psb-kernel-headers xpsb-glx
poulsbo-driver-2d were installed.
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CoreExpress Carrierboard Manual v1.0
Additionally, the section “Device” in
/etc/X11/xorg.conf was changed to:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Option "Accel Method" "EXA"
Option "DRI" "off"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection
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CoreExpress Carrierboard Manual v1.0
3 Installation of Linux on SD card
3.1 Installation
Create a bootable Live USB drive that contains the
installation files. We recommend using UNetbootin
(http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net).
We highly recommend to install Linux on the target
SD card inserted into a USB cardreader. This is
because standard installation routines might not
recognize the SD card properly which might cause
errors during installation. Also, to succesfully boot
from SD card, some extra steps will be necessary that
can be performed the easiest way when the OS was
booted from the SD card in the card reader.
Connect the cardreader as well as the bootable USB
stick, switch on your CoreExpress computer and
press .ESC during startup. In the boot-menu, select
Hard Disk and then your USB stick.
Follow the instructions of the installation routine of
your Linux distribution. Select the SD card in the
cardreader as target device. You should choose man-
ual partitioning. Create an ext3 partition for the oper-
ating system and do not create a swap partition. Pro-
ceed with the installation.
3.2 Enable Boot from SD card
After having installed Linux succesfully, leave
the SD card in the cardreader and boot your
new installation from the cardreader for the first
time. In order to enable booting from SD
card, some modules have to be built into the
initramfs-image: Add the following modules to
/etc/initramfs-tools/modules (each in
one line):
•sdhci
•sdhci-pci
•mmc_block
Save the file and run update-initramfs -u
with root priveledges.
Make sure that the root-partition in
/boot/grub/menu.lst is set correctly. The
SD card should appear either as /dev/mmcblk0p1
or with its UUID.
3.3 Further Notes
In case you installed from a USB stick and auto-
mounting devices throws errors, comment out a line
in /etc/fstab, that looks like this:
/dev/sdb1 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660
user,noauto,exec 0 0
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CoreExpress Carrierboard Manual v1.0
4 Contact Information
Ascending Technologies GmbH
Konrad-Zuse Bogen 4
82152 Krailling
GERMANY
Phone: +49 (89) 89556079-0
E-Mail: [email protected]
Web: www.asctec.de
CEOs:
Michael Achtelik, Klaus-Michael Doth
Dipl.-Ing. Daniel Gurdan, Dipl.-Ing. Jan Stumpf
Handelsregister München: HRB 166748
Ust.-ID: DE254728199
CoreExpress is a registered trademark of LiPPERT Embedded Computers. All other trademarks
are the property of their respective owners.
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