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Getting started with OMAP processors and beagle board

Robert Malczyk
Prodigy 30 points

Hello all :)

I want to start to work with omap processor, I see that beagle board is very well documented so I want to buy this evaluation board first. I have question for you, what stuff do I need to work with this platform. From what I know I will need JTAG, will XDS100v2 be ok? Does this JTAG give me full access to all features of this platform?

Thanks for reply :)

  • 0
    TI__Mastermind 24340 points

    Hi Robert,

    Most Linux developers do not need JTAG to debug board. GDB, or DevRocket from Montavista is used.

    If you choose to use JTAG, please see:

    CCS3

    In a typical application you would only be using Code Composer Studio version 3 (CCS3) for the development of DSP side code using the DSP/BIOS RTOS, as CCS3 is not Linux aware and is ineffective in debugging Linux applications on the ARM (the same can be said for other high level OS such as Windows CE).

    CCSv3 is capable of connecting to the OMAP/Davinci and loading/debugging applications. For example in this part of the GSG when you connect to the ARM, and load a program to burn the flash: Flashing OMAP-L137 Bootloaders. You can debug ARM at a very low register level.

    However it is not practical to do so as most OMAP/Davinci applications would require the use of a high level OS anyway. The biggest reason you cannot just connect up to CCS and start development is a lack of software support; all of the software collateral for the OMAP/Davinci such as drivers, multimedia frameworks, examples, etc. are based on a high level OS, primarily Linux. This being said, development outside of a high level OS using CCS is unsupported, it is possible but there would be massive amounts of work necessary to get a functional system, primarily rewriting drivers.

    There are alternative OSes available, such as Windows CE however I am not very familiar with the development process for them, typically anything outside of Linux is handled by a third party company, in the case of Windows CE on OMAP3 this is BSquare, as far as I know none of them utilize CCS.

    Essentially the only way I can support OMAP/Davinci development at this point is through Linux, which requires a Linux host to some extent, as the tool set is all built around a Linux host PC. You can get by without a Linux host for much of the development process once you have the files installed, however the one thing you cannot do with a Windows host is provide a NFS server that the board can mount (at least I have never seen a way to do so). Because of this there is not an easy/effective way to transfer things to and from the board at a high level OS level. Note that just because a Linux host is required for embedded Linux development, this does not mean that your PC has to be running Linux as its primary OS, even here we do not have many true Linux boxes; most of the Linux host machines we use here are virtual, using VMWare software on a Windows PC, that way you get the best of both worlds.

    Fortunately, there are many vendors that do create excellent tools for ARM side such as MontaVista's DevRocket IDE (Linux), Green Hills's MULTI IDE (Linux and Integrity), and even some free open source debuggers such as ddd (Linux).

    CCS4

    For CCSv4, it is possible to debug with Linux awareness using OMAP3(cortex A-8) for now:

    Linux Aware Debug

    There are plans to support other platforms in the future like ARM9.

     

    For XDS100 information please see:

    http://tiexpressdsp.com/index.php/XDS100#XDS100v2_Features

     

     

  • 0 in reply to Mariana
    Prodigy 30 points

    Thanks for reply :)

    Ofcourse my goal is to launch linux on this platform and work on it (2d graphics).  Correct me if Im wrong, I will be able to programming memory via bootloader and in fact i dont need to have any JTAG? The other thing that I want to ask is how this two processors work witch each other? Do the OS do all work for me and "ditribute" tasks between those two processors?

  • 0 in reply to Robert Malczyk
    TI__Mastermind 24340 points

    You can load your project and communicate with it using networking + serial port. Please see the getting started guide:

    http://tiexpressdsp.com/index.php/OMAP35x_DVEVM_Getting_Started_Guide

    The interface between the DSP and ARM can be codec engine. The ARM uses codec engine to use the DSP:

    http://tiexpressdsp.com/index.php/Category:Codec_Engine

  • 0 in reply to Mariana
    Prodigy 30 points

    Many thanks for help :)