Serial Cable for booting FreeBSD on the BeagleBone Black

[Paul Mather]

Dr. Rolf Jansen,

On Dec 30, 2016, at 5:21 PM, George Rosamond <george at ceetonetechnology.com> wrote:

> Dr. Rolf Jansen:
>> I ordered my BeagleBone Black, and I will receive it next week.
>> 
>> I read on https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/BeagleBoneBlack about booting the BBB with FreeBSD, that I need to:
>> 
>>   "Connect a serial cable such as the FTDI TTL-232R 3.3v
>>    or the Adafruit 4-pin cable"
>> 
>> I am sorry, for needing to ask the obvious:
>> 
>> - connect the serial cable to where and for what purpose?
> 
> There are four pin connectors on the serial cable, black, green, white
> and red.
> 
> There are six pins along one side of the BBBlack with pin 1 labeled "J1"
> 
> pin1 black
> 
> pin4 green
> 
> pin5 white
> 
> and red is unused.


Using the AdaFruit FTDI Friend (https://www.adafruit.com/products/284 <https://www.adafruit.com/products/284>) is even simpler with the BeagleBone Black: just plug it directly into the J1 jumper mentioned above and everything lines up automagically. :-)

Once plugged in, connect it to your "serial terminal" (e.g., FreeBSD host system) via a mini-B to USB-A cable and use "cu" to connect.  Speed is 115200.  It even includes send and receive blinkenlights so you can see when data is flowing...

Cheers,

Paul.