openSUSE:PandaBoard

General information

Get some general information (Hardware description, installation of openSUSE, etc.) on HCL:PandaBoard.

Tests

audio in/out

You have to configure inputs and outputs. You can either:

• restore values from a file

 wget http://guillaume.gardet.free.fr/openSUSE/pandaboard-alsa.conf
 alsactl -f pandaboardboard-alsa.conf restore

• OR, configure it manually with alsamixer: (switch Headset Left Playback and Headset Right Playback from Off to HS DAC and set Headset level to 100.)

 alsamixer

Then you can try to play some files:

 aplay test.wav

And to record some sound:

 arecord test_input.wav

CPU freq

Please DO NOT use BogoMIPS values but the provided script. BogoMIPS values are lower with new kernels used from openSUSE 12.3, but it has no effect on performances. For information, see: http://www.spinics.net/lists/arm-kernel/msg221672.html

In order to test CPU freq capabilities, please download this script:

 http://guillaume.gardet.free.fr/openSUSE/cputest.sh

And execute it. You should see something like:

Automatic Voltage Scaling (AVS) (formerly known as Smartreflex)

AVS is not easily testable but is enabled in the kernel.

Ethernet

You can test functionality. Plug a cable on a network where a DHCP server and a router are running. Wait a while and then see if you have an IP address:

 ifconfig eth0

Then try to ping something on the network:

 ping 192.168.1.254
 ping www.google.fr

You can also test the performances with iperf. Install iperf on a computer and on the board and run on one side the iperf server:

 iperf -s

and on the other side, the iperf client:

 iperf -c <ip_addr_of_iperf_server>

then you can invert the iperf server and client and rerun the tests.

On a pandaboard rev. A3, , with kernel 3.11.10-2-default, we get 95 Mb/s.

SD/MMC

If you boot on your SD card, then SD/MMC works! ;)

UART (debug)

Plug a serial cable (or serial/usb) between the board and your computer. Start minicom:

 sudo minicom

And switch on the board. You should see something starting with:

U-Boot SPL 2013.04 (Jan 08 2014 - 14:33:37)

 OMAP4430 ES2.2
 OMAP SD/MMC: 0
 
 U-Boot 2013.04 (Jan 08 2014 - 14:33:37)

USB hosts

Plug an USB stick and mount it:

 mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

And see what is on your stick:

 ls /mnt

Unmount it:

 umount /mnt