The BeagleBone Black includes a 2GB or 4GB on-board eMMC flash memory chip. It comes with the Debian distribution factory pre-installed. You can flash new operating systems including Angstrom, Ubuntu, Android, and others. The following pages will illustrate the steps to getting the latest of each type of supported distribution onto the on-board eMMC.
In addition to the eMMC, you can also boot directly from a microSD card similarly to the original BeagleBone.
Choosing an Operating System
Angstrom, Ubuntu, and Debian all appear to have stable images.
Android is currently working from a 3rd party build. We don't have a guide on how to install this as of yet.
Angstrom
Depending on how long ago you purchased your BeagleBone Black, you may not have the latest version of Angstrom installed. It's usually preferable to get the latest version, especially this early in the product's lifecycle.
Download
To start with, download the latest version of Angstrom for the BeagleBone Black. You can find the latest version at the BeagleBoard Latest Images page. Once you've downloaded the file, you'll want to jump to the section for your specific OS (Mac OS X, Linux, Windows).Default User/Password and SSH
The default login user/password for angstrom is "root". There is no password set, so you can bypass the password prompt by just hitting enter without typing anything in.Angstrom comes with the Avahi Daemon pre-installed. This is really useful because you can now ssh in simply by using 'beaglebone.local' instead of trying to find the IP address. For example, type this into your favorite terminal:
Ubuntu
Ubuntu is an unsupported operating system for the BeagleBone Black (BBB), but does have quite a few users, and a stable image with the 3.8 Linux kernel.
Download
To start with, download the latest version of Ubuntu for the BeagleBone Black. You can find the latest version at the Ubuntu software support page. Choose the file that is compatible with flashing to the eMMC. Once you've downloaded the file, you'll want to jump to the section for your specific OS (Mac OS X, Linux, Windows).
It is important that you download a version of Ubuntu specifically built for the BeagleBone Black unless you're an expert at configuring Linux and working with the kernel. It's not necessary to download the most recent version, but it's highly recommended. The BBB ecosystem is rapidly changing, and each release offers many new improvements.
Default User/Password and SSH
If you've used the the image to flash Ubuntu to the eMMC, the default username for Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail) is "ubuntu". The default password is 'temppwd'. Ubuntu does not come with the avahi daemon pre-installed, so you'll need to ssh in using the IP address using your favorite terminal:
Copying the Image to a microSD Card
Navigate to the next sub-page for the host operating system you'll be using to copy the image to the microSD card.
Windows
Next, download the free Win32 Disk Imager software that we'll use to copy the image to the microSD card. After downloading the software, extract it from the zip file (7zip can be used here as well).
Launch the Win32 Disk Imager Software by double clicking the "Win32DiskImager" file in the folder that you extracted it to. You should see the following screen once it launches:
You can now continue on to the Flashing the BeagleBone Black page to continue.
Mac OS X
It will take a minute or two to extract the file, and you should then end up with a 3.66 GB .img file (notice that the .xz is removed from the file extension).
There are now a few ways to continue. You can use terminal commands, or software that will guide you through it. Let's start with the guided software using a graphical interface.
Using a GUI
First, you'll want to download PiFiller. It was designed to install images onto SD cards for the Raspberry PI, but there isn't any reason why it wouldn't work for BeagleBone images as well.
Once you've downloaded Pi Filler, locate it in Finder (typically Downloads), and double click it to extract it. You may want to copy it to your Applications folder.
Then, insert your microSD card into your Mac, and click Continue. Pi Filler will look for your SD Card, and then notify you once it finds it.
Navigate to the Flashing the BeagleBone Black page, and follow the instructions on how to flash the newly copied image onto the on-board flash memory of the BeagleBone Black.
Using the command line
Another alternative is to flash the microSD card entirely from the command line. You'll first want to extract the img.xz file you've downloaded, and the best program for that is still "The Unarchiver" mentioned in the GUI instructions. Once you've got the extracted .img file, open a terminal to get started.
Execute the following command to see the list of connected storage devices:
df -h
df -h
Once you've got the name of the device, you'll want to unmount that disk using the following command, but replacing the specifics with your card details:
sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk4s1
Note that we subtly changed the device name from "/dev/disk4s1" to "/dev/rdisk4". You'll want to do the same when you execute the below command.
Also, choose the right file location for your .img file in the input file field (if=...).
sudo dd bs=1m if=~/Downloads/BBB-eMMC-flasher-2013.05.08.img of=/dev/rdisk4
Navigate to the Flashing the BeagleBone Black page, and follow the instructions on how to flash the newly copied image onto the on-board flash memory of the BeagleBone Black.
Flashing the BeagleBone Black
To start, make sure the BeagleBone Black is powered down, and unplugged from the power source.
Now, insert the microSD card into the slot on the back of the BeagleBone Black. It should snap into place.
Now, find the "User Boot" button. it's located on the same side of the BeagleBone Black as the microSD card slot, and is the only button in that area. See the below screenshot (from beagleboard.org) highlighting the 'User Boot" button.
Hold the "User Boot" button down, and then plug in the power (USB or 5V adaptor). Keep holding down the button until you see the bank of 4 LED's light up for a few seconds. You can now release the button.
It will take anywhere from 30-45 minutes to flash the image onto the on-board chip. Once it's done, the bank of 4 LED's to the right of the Ethernet will all turn off. You can then power down your BeagleBone Black.
FAQ
- Ensure you have a good power supply. This is the most important thing as flashing the BBB is pretty power intensive. The USB power supply featured in this guide is fully capable.
- Unplug the Ethernet while flashing. It can consume a bit of power unnecessarily.
- Try again. Sometimes it can take a couple of tries to get the process going. Also, make sure you've held the user boot button down the entire time until the LED's light up, prior to plugging in the power. Re-seat the SD card.
- Copy the image to your SD card again. It's possible that this process wasn't fully successful.
You can do this by executing the following command:
opkg update ; opkg install openssh-keygen
Another option is to execute the following command (configure it to execute on startup as well):
/usr/bin/ntpdate -b -s -u pool.ntp.org
opkg --tmp-dir ~ update opkg --tmp-dir ~ upgrade
This guide was first published on May 21, 2013. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.