Setting Up Communications

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Customers using Gumstix OpenEmbedded should go to gumstix.net and the related user wiki

Note: all gumstix verdex motherboards available at gumstix.com are pre-flashed with OpenEmbedded.

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 * After you have all the hardware connected and powered up, the next step is:

Setting up RS232 Communications
Click here to connect via serial to Windows, Linux and MacOSX

Setting up Bluetooth Communications
More information on connecting to Mac OS X with Bluetooth.

Bluetooth communication setup on Linux LinuxBluetooth

Using DHCP
All gumstix motherboards come configured to start the ethernet device and request an IP address from the network via DHCP. You need an active DHCP server on the LAN in order for the ethernet to come up and either a netstix computer or a pack/board configuration which includes a netMMC, netCF, netDUO-mmc or wifistix. To determine what IP address has been allocated to your Gumstix, you can:
 * check your DHCP server logs, if available
 * sniff the network while powering up your Gumstix with a free packet sniffer like Wireshark
 * scan the network for new hosts with a network scanner like Nmap, as in: nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24

To connect using ssh, in the konsole type: ssh -l username ipaddress. ipaddress is the IP address and username is your user name (initially set to root).

If you don't want to use DHCP, but wish to hard-code an IP address, then you'll need to edit the network startup scripts in /etc/init.d/S40network and /etc/network/interfaces accordingly.

Recent images are configured to work with Windows as well as with Linux. Unfortunately this mode seems to be incompatible with older kernels. Either you use Linux > 2.6.9 (or apply patches to your current version), or you reflash your Gumstix with an adapted image. See the Kernel programming page for instructions how to do that.

Networking Details
For detailed networking information, go here.

Using Compact Flash
To mount the compact flash card, use:


 * 1) mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/cf

To see if the compact flash is mounted, use:

# df

To write files to the compact flash, write to /mnt/cf. For example, copy File to the CF card from /home/


 * 1) cp /home/File /mnt/cf

To unmount the CF card, do:


 * 1) umount /mnt/cf

Enabling MMC
Since revision 1066, Compact Flash has been enabled by default in the preloaded code put on the motherboards and MMC has been disabled. This means that the Compact Flash on the netstix computer is enabled but the MMC on the waysmall computer, or on any connex motherboard with a netMMC or netDUO-MMC expansion board, is not enabled.

Note: MMC is active in revision 773 (which is what was shipping for quite a while) but since revision 1066, which brought the introduction of wifistix in the summer of 2006, the Compact Flash (CF) has been active and MMC has been inactive.

After a login over the serial port, the following message is printed:

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Welcome to Gumstix! By default, this gumstix is configured for CF support. Unfortunately, this means MMC support has been disabled out of the box.

To turn on MMC and turn off CF, edit the file /etc/modules and comment out or delete the pcmcia (CF) line, and uncomment the MMC lines. You then also need to comment out or remove the line "auto mwlan0" in /etc/network/interfaces if it exists, since it will otherwise cause the pcmcia driver to be loaded.

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The modifications suggested in the message above need to be made in order to make the MMC card slot work.

Running an SSH server
All gumstix computers and motherboards ship by default with an SSH server installed and running, allowing immediate TCP/IP login as root (with password). Once logged in, you can set up authorized public keys, etc. The gumstix computer initializes RSA and DSS host keys the first time it boots, and these are then persisted across future reboots. You can use "scp" to copy files onto/off of the gumstix.

A few notes for first time users: The first time you login as root, the password is "gumstix" without the quotes. If you are trying to SSH over usbnet (since the GumStix does not load the ethernet interfaces by default), be sure to _turn off your firewall, or at least open the corresponding ports_ so that USBNet has a chance to assign the device an IP and allow you to connect to it. There is a nice little how-to on setting up USBnet with DHCP in the FAQ.

HTTP server
All gumstix computers and motherboards ship by default with an HTTP server installed and configured. You can access the server on port 80 on the gumstix.

Bonjour enabled
All gumstix computers and motherboards ship by default with a mDNSResponder configured to announce the gumstix to the local network. It will announce its HTTP and SSH services. Additional services can be configured, or the existing ones can be modified by logging into the gumstix.

The host side of Bonjour is available for Mac OSX and for Windows. If the Windows link doesn't work, look for a newer version here.

P.S. The Bonjour service on the gumstix shows up as "Starting Rendezvous:" in the boot log. (Rendezvous is the former name of Bonjour).

Frequently Asked Questions
More questions about the gumstix have been answered here.

Software Development Kit

 * Review the Software development kit.

Tutorial

 * Tutorial - Misc. tutorials on a variety of subjects like loading a new root fs image.

Programming

 * Programming - Setup and write your own gumstix programs