7. The board

This chapter introduces the board, its hardware and how to boot it.

7.1. Hardware

The hardware documentation of Galileo can be found here:

https://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-21822

https://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-21824

7.2. Power-On

Galileo takes the power from connector 5V PWR. The board is shipped with an external power adapter.

To assemble it, take the power socket adapter compatible with your country, plug it in the power adapter.

When in position, you should hear a slight click.

To power-on the board, just connect the external power adapter to Galileo connector 5V PWR.

7.3. Serial Console

On Galileo there is the dedicated serial console connector UART (audio mini-jack)

which you can connect, by the serial to mini-jack UART port cable, to your personal computer.

Note

Every operating system has its own killer application to give you a serial terminal interface. In this guide, we are assuming your host operating system is Ubuntu.

On a Linux (Ubuntu) host machine, the console is seen as a ttyUSBX or ttySX device and you can access to it by means of an application like minicom.

Minicom needs to know the name of the serial device. The simplest way for you to discover the name of the device is by looking to the kernel messages, so:

1. clean the kernel messages

  Host    select

sudo dmesg -c

2. connect the mini-USB cable to the board already powered-on
3. display the kernel messages

  Host    select

dmesg

3. read the output

  Host    select

[ 2614.290675] usb 3-4: >new full-speed USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd
[ 2614.313854] usb 3-4: >New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6015
[ 2614.313861] usb 3-4: >New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 2614.313865] usb 3-4: >Product: FT230X Basic UART
[ 2614.313868] usb 3-4: >Manufacturer: FTDI
[ 2614.313870] usb 3-4: >SerialNumber: DN002OZI
[ 2614.379284] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[ 2614.379298] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[ 2614.379306] USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 2614.379310] usbserial: USB Serial Driver core
[ 2614.387899] usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio
[ 2614.387914] USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
[ 2614.387997] ftdi_sio 3-4:1.0: >FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
[ 2614.388029] usb 3-4: >Detected FT-X
[ 2614.388031] usb 3-4: >Number of endpoints 2
[ 2614.388034] usb 3-4: >Endpoint 1 MaxPacketSize 64
[ 2614.388035] usb 3-4: >Endpoint 2 MaxPacketSize 64
[ 2614.388037] usb 3-4: >Setting MaxPacketSize 64
[ 2614.388260] usb 3-4: >FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to /dev/ttyS0
[ 2614.388288] ftdi_sio: v1.6.0:USB FTDI Serial Converters Driver

As you can see, here the device has been recognized as /dev/ttyS0.

Now that you know the device name, run minicom:

  Host    select

sudo minicom -ws

If minicom is not installed, you can install it with:

  Host    select

sudo apt-get install minicom

then you can setup your port with these parameters:

  Host    select

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| A -    Serial Device      : /dev//dev/ttyS0                              |
| B - Lockfile Location     : /var/lock                                 |
| C -   Callin Program      :                                           |
| D -  Callout Program      :                                           |
| E -    Bps/Par/Bits       : 115200 8N1                                |
| F - Hardware Flow Control : No                                        |
| G - Software Flow Control : No                                        |
|                                                                       |
|    Change which setting?                                              |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
        | Screen and keyboard      |
        | Save setup as dfl        |
        | Save setup as..          |
        | Exit                     |
        | Exit from Minicom        |
        +--------------------------+

If on your system the device has not been recognized as /dev/ttyS0, just replace /dev/ttyS0 with the proper device.

Once you are done configuring the serial port, you are back to minicom main menu and you can select exit.

7.4. Let’s boot

The Galileo board boots from SD card (or USB stick).