Oumex A64-OLinuXino User manual
A64-OLinuXino
64-bit open source embedded computer
QUICK START GUID
Document revision A, September 2017
Designed and manufactured by OLIM X Ltd, 2017
All boards manufactured by OLIMEX LTD are RoHS compliant
OLIMEX© 2017 A64-OLinuXino quick start
A6 -OLinuXino is a single-board open hardware computer. It is a system built on a single circuit board with
all hardware for proper operation already available (such as processor, power management unit, memories,
peripherals, connectors, and everything else required for basic operation).
On the other hand, A6 -OLinuXino can also be considered a general purpose development board. It can be
used in an infinite number of ways. It can boot different operating systems and distributions. There are a
number of options for accessing the operating system. The platform has free general purpose pins and
popular hardware interfaces. The board allows different ways of powering. This guide doesn't cover all
possible ways to setup the board – it lists the two most typical ways of accessing the board for the first time.
The guide is intended for absolute beginners.
1. First time setup with HDMI display
This method might be suitable for people that lack USB ↔ serial cable but have HDMI display. It is also a
method that shows the graphical user interface of the operating system. This method is prone to software
issues and incompatibilities. Additional access to the board via USB ↔ serial cable is highly recommended,
skip to chapter “2. First time setup with USB ↔ serial cable” if you need more details on how to set it up.
1.1. Items required
Before you proceed ensure that you have the following items at your disposal:
1.1.1. Any version of the A6 -OLinuXino board.
1.1.2. An external source of power supply. It should be capable of providing at least 1A of current at 5V of
voltage. If you power additional components from the board (e.g. USB modem, LCD display, keyboard,
mouse, etc.) consider a power supply capable of providing at least 2A of current. The power supply should fit
the on-board power jack.
The on-board DC barrel jack is center positive and the inner pin is 2.0mm thick. The outer hole diameter is
6.3mm. The corresponding power suppl plug (or female jack) that fits the DC barrel jack has 2.1mm inner
diameter and 5.5mm outer diameter. The length of the male plug should be between 10mm and 14mm.
For basic operation consider the 5V power adapters that we distribute – SY0605E and SY0605E-CHINA
(note that ou might need additional plug adapter if ou live outside of mainland Europe).
1.1.3. A monitor or display with native HDMI interface, capable of 1280×720 resolution (or marked as “HD
ready” or “720p”).
1.1.4. An HDMI cable compatible with the board and the monitor.
1.1.5. Input peripherals – like a keyboard and a mouse. Note that the board has only one USB type A host
connector exposed and only one USB micro connector exposed – you will either need specific keyboard +
mouse hardware (that uses only one USB host port), or specific adapter cable (to fit the USB micro
connector), or an external USB hub (USB splitter).
1.1.6. A micro SD card card with an official image provided by Olimex suitable for your board. You can use
own micro SD card – we provide download links to the official images at the product page and the board's
wiki article. The card has to be at least 8GB of size. In this case you would need a card writer tool to prepare
the card and a personal computer with Internet access that is capable of running a torrent client freely.
Link to the product page, latest official images are available in the “SOFTWARE” paragraph:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A64/A64-OLinuXino/open-source-hardware
We distribute affordable blank microSD cards here:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/Components/Storage/MICRO-SD-8GB-CLASS10/
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OLIMEX© 2017 A64-OLinuXino quick start
1.2. Preparation and boot
Once we have everything require we can proceed booting:
1.2.1. Carefully open the box with the board. The box contains only the board in protective packaging and
four ( ) rubber feet.
1.2.2. Remove the board from the protective packaging and place the four rubber feet at bottom of the board.
Use the four mounting holes. If you have trouble inserting them straight, try pushing and rotating the rubber.
Some surfaces might use conductive materials and placing the board directly over such a surface might lead
to short-circuit. The rubber feet allow the board to be placed safely on a flat surface without the risk of short-
circuit. Here is a picture of A6 -OLinuXino-1G GW with the four rubber feet properly placed at the bottom
and important parts labeled:
1.2.3. Download the archive with the latest official image from the board's web-page to your computer.
Extract the archive and download the image to the microSD card via the microSD card reader/writer. Make
sure to back-up any files located on the microSD card since download the image to it, would destroy any
data. There are a lot of software tools that can be used for downloading the image to the card. If you have no
experience under Windows use “Win32 Disk Imager” tool – point to the image and select the drive
associated with the card, then click Write. Refer to the picture below:
1.2.4. Connect the input and output peripherals to the board. Insert the microSD card. Connect display to the
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OLIMEX© 2017 A64-OLinuXino quick start
HDMI of the board. Connect the keyboard and the mouse to the USB ports. Connect LAN cable if you have
available. Do not connect the power supply until rest of the hardware had been already connected. The
general layout that we aim for is listed below:
1.2.5 Power the display and apply the power supply to the board. The graphical user interface should start
automatically. By default the super user name is “root” the password is “olimex”.
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OLIMEX© 2017 A64-OLinuXino quick start
2. First time setup with USB ↔ serial cable
This is the most direct and recommended method of accessing the board. It allows you to access the
command line interface of the Linux operating system of the A6 board via your personal computer. Some
server Linux images might lack video otuput capabilities at all and using a USB-serial cable would be one of
the ways to access the board.
2.1. Items required
Before you proceed ensure that you have the items listed in the this chapter available:
2.1.1. Any version of the A6 -OLinuXino board.
2.1.2. An external source of power supply. It should be capable of providing at least 1A of current at 5V of
voltage. If you power additional components from the board (e.g. USB modem, LCD display, keyboard,
mouse, etc.) consider a power supply capable of providing at least 2A of current. The power supply should fit
the on-board power jack.
The on-board DC barrel jack is center positive and the inner pin is 2.0mm thick. The outer hole diameter is
6.3mm. The corresponding power suppl plug (or female jack) that fits the DC barrel jack has 2.1mm inner
diameter and 5.5mm outer diameter. The length of the male plug should be between 10mm and 14mm.
For basic operation consider the 5V power adapters that we distribute – SY0605E and SY0605E-CHINA
(note that ou might need additional plug adapter if ou live outside of mainland Europe)
2.1.3. A personal computer with serial terminal software. This guide gives information about the usage of a
USB ↔ serial cable and terminal software onl under Windows; users of other operating s stems can get
familiar with serial terminal software and its usage via a quick internet search (it is a ver well known
process).
2.1.4. A USB ↔ serial cable with female leads with connectors for RX, TX, and GND. The cable and its
drivers should be compatible with your personal computer. The cable should work at 3.3V (not 5V).
These adapter cables are not expensive. Such a cable can be purchased from almost an electronics store
and online. We also manufacture a CH340T-based cable available here:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/Breadboarding/BB-CH340T/open-source-hardware and also we distribute
PL2303XA-based cable, available here: https://www.olimex.com/Products/Components/Cables/USB-Serial-
Cable/USB-Serial-Cable-F/
2.1.5. A micro SD card card with an official image provided by Olimex suitable for your board. You can use
own micro SD card – we provide download links to the official images at the product page and the board's
wiki article. The card has to be at least 8GB of size. In this case you would need a card writer tool, in order to
prepare the card and a personal computer with Internet access that is capable of running a torrent client
freely, in order to download our official images.
Link to the product page, latest official images are available in the “SOFTWARE” paragraph:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A64/A64-OLinuXino/open-source-hardware
We distribute affordable blank microSD cards here:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/Components/Storage/MICRO-SD-8GB-CLASS10/
2.2. Preparation and boot
Once we have everything require we can proceed booting:
2.2.1. Carefully open the box with the board. The box contains only the board in protective packaging and
four ( ) rubber feet.
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OLIMEX© 2017 A64-OLinuXino quick start
2.2.2. Remove the board from the protective packaging and place the four rubber feet at bottom of the board.
Use the four mounting holes. If you have trouble inserting them straight, try pushing and rotating the rubber.
Some surfaces might use conductive materials and placing the board directly over such a surface might lead
to short-circuit. The rubber feet allow the board to be placed safely on a flat surface without the risk of short-
circuit. Here is a picture of A6 -OLinuXino-1G GW with the four rubber feet properly placed at the bottom
and important parts labeled:
2.2.3. Download the archive with the latest official image from the board's web-page to your computer.
Extract the archive and download the image to the microSD card via the microSD card reader/writer. Make
sure to back-up any files located on the microSD card since downloading the image would destroy any
previous data. There are a lot of software tools that can be used for downloading the image to the card. If
ou have no experience under Windows use “Win32 Disk Imager” tool – point to the image and select the
drive associated with the card, then click Write. Refer to the picture below:
2.2.4. Insert the already prepared microSD card in the slot at the bottom of the board. It is a push-push
MicroSD connector. If ou want to remove the card, do not pull it out directl – first push to release the
locking mechanism and then remove it.
2.2.5. Connect the USB-serial cable between your computer and the board. At the board's side use the three
male pins behind the power jack – this is called the “UART debug” connector. Refer to the picture with the
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OLIMEX© 2017 A64-OLinuXino quick start
layout of the board on where “UART debug” is located. Connect cable's RX to the TX of the connector;
cable's RX to the TX of the connector; GND of the cable ot GND of the connector.
Install the drivers for your USB-serial cable if you haven't already. Make sure it is properly recognized by your
personal computer – it should be listed as a serial port (COMx; TTYx; etc).
2.2.6. Do not connect the power supply until rest of the hardware had been connected. The general layout
that we aim for is listed below:
2.2.7. Start the terminal software. If you don't have such installed, download and install such for free, few
popular free options are PuTTY, TeraTerm, RealTerm. In some operating s stem there is serial terminal
software alread installed, installing serial terminal software might be redundant. In this guide we use PuTTY
and Windows 10. The cable used is Olimex BB-CH3 0. The first picture below shows how the serial cable
gets recognized by Windows once the drivers are properly installed:
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OLIMEX© 2017 A64-OLinuXino quick start
We see that it is assigned COM #2. We need this information in order to start the PuTTY on the same serial
port. As shown below – select the proper COM port, the speed, make sure that the connection is set to
“Serial” and finally click “Open” at the bottom:
This would bring a black empty window, which would be our command interface to the board once we power
the board.
2.2.8. Apply the power supply to the board. At this point the PuTTY terminal should report boot data
information from the board, and eventually we would be requested to provide super user credentials. The
user name is “root” and the password is “olimex”.
If nothing shows up in the terminal quite likel RX and TX lines of the cable are swapped. Tr to change RX
and TX. Refer to the pictures and diagrams further up in this document.
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