1.1.3. Windows SD Card Creation GuideΒΆ

Introduction

This page details how to use an image file to create a SD Card containing the embedded Linux system provided with the Linux SDK. This allows a user to evaluate the embedded system on a supported hardware platform.

What is Needed

  • Access to a Windows PC
  • A valid Linux SDK image for the appropriate processor (AM335x, for example)
  • Software to decompress a zip file (ex. 7-zip)
  • Software to write an image file to a SD card
  • A SD card appropriate for the required hardware platform, must be 16GB or larger
  • A SD card reader/writer

Steps to Follow

Here is the process to follow to create the SD card.

  1. Download the Processor SDK for Linux image file that you want to use.

  2. On a Windows PC, you’ll need software to decompress a zip file. Windows 7 can do this natively. If you don’t already have something that works, the open source software 7-zip is a great choice. Since this image is created with lots of empty space, this step saves about 700 MB of download time.

  3. Use the decompression software to decompress the zipped file to an image file. Here’s how to do it with 7-zip:

    ../../_images/7zip_to_extract_image.png

    You should see a status bar as the image is decompressed:

    ../../_images/Win32_Disk_Imager_Extracting.png

    And this is what you should have when it is finished:

    ../../_images/7zip_image_file_extracted.png
  4. If you don’t have it already, download a program to write the image file to the SD card. The open source Win32 Disk Imager is a good option.

  5. Use the software for writing an image to disk to write the decompressed .img file to the SD card.

    1. Plug the SD card into the SD card reader/writer.

    2. Insert the SD card reader/writer into the PC.

    3. Launch the disk writer software, if needed.

    4. Choose the image file for the SDK that you want to write.

      ../../_images/Win32_Disk_Imager_open.png

      And select the appropriate SDK Image file:

      ../../_images/Win32_disk_imager_select_a_disk_image.png
    5. Choose the SD card as the destination.

      ../../_images/Win32_Disk_Imager_select_disk.png
    6. Write the image to the SD card.

      ../../_images/Win32_Disk_Imager_write_disk.png

      Note

      You’ll likely get the below confirmation box. This command will overwrite whatever disk you point it to, please make sure and choose the correct disk:

      ../../_images/Win32_disk_imager_Confirm_overwrite.png

      You should see the following status bar as the image is being written to the disk:

      ../../_images/Win32_Disk_Imager_writing_to_disk.png

      And when the write is complete, you should get a notification:

      ../../_images/Win32_Disk_Imager_Complete.png

      You can now close the image writing program:

      ../../_images/Win32_Disk_Imager_exit.png
  6. Safely eject the SD card from the computer. Here’s an example using Windows 7:

../../_images/Win7_eject_disk.png ../../_images/Win7_eject_disk_detail.png ../../_images/Win7_device_can_be_safely_removed.png
  1. Plug it into a supported hardware platform and boot the platform from the SD card.
  2. If the platform has a display (Starterkit, for example), you should see the Matrix application from the SDK. If the hardware does not have a display, you should be able to access Matrix remotely through a web browser if the PC and the board are on a common network. You can also connect to the board using a terminal emulator (ex. Tera Term) in order to view the serial console and interact with the embedded Linux system (ex. run ifconfig to get the IP address of the target board in order to connect to it to view remote matrix).