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i plan to try some bare-metal TCP/IP stuff on a beaglebone. There is TI StarterWare containing the TCP/IP stack which is good. However, to flash my program to BB, I need some JTAG adaptor and software. Which one should I buy/use there so many different JTAG debuggers, are they all equivalent?

Stasik
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3 Answers3

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One preliminary remark:

You don't really need a JTAG probe for downloading/running/flashing your program: you can load and execute using u-boot loadb or load commands from the serial console, provided that your beaglebone does still have u-boot installed - The procedure for connecting a USB-to-TTL adapter is described here. I would strongly suggest to buy the exact adapter featured in the article above on e-bay if you don't have one.

In addition to the u-boot/serial adapter, you can to connect your beaglebone to your local network, and download your application using u-boot tftp commands. You can buy a USB to Ethernet adapter for a couple of dollars, plug it into your PC, then install a TFTP server, tftp32 (Windows) or tftpd-hpa (Linux). You will then be able to connect directly your development PC to your beaglebone.

In the case your beaglebone would not have a working u-boot installed anymore, you still can re-install it from the serial port:

This can be done by connecting both P8.44/SYS_BOOT3/LCD_DATA3/GPIO2_9 and P8.43/SYS_BOOT2/LCD_DATA2/GPIO2_8 to the ground (two of P9.43/P9.44/P9.45/P9.46) using two 4.7 k ohm resistors, powering the beaglebone with an external 5V power supply (not by USB), and power-cycling the beaglebone - power-cycling IS required, performing a 'reset' is not enough for the new SYSBOOT configuration to be taken into account.

You can then download u-boot from your PC using Teraterm: u-boot-spl-.bin should be downloaded using x-modem, and u-boot.bin using y-modem, as described in the 'Boot over UART' section of this TI wiki article.

This being said, a JTAG probe is always useful when debugging a bare metal application or the Linux kernel: as a hobbyist, I am using the EDU version of Segger J-link with my beaglebone (around USD 63). If you need it for commercial use, the price tag is around USD 400 I guess.

You will also need to have the TI 20 pin header soldered on your beaglebone - see section "Optional JTAG" of the beaglebone documentation.

I bought the Samtec FTR-110-03-G-D-06 connector, and am perfectly happy with it.

Please note the CircuitCo used to sell Beaglebone Blacks with the connector already soldered.

Finally, you will need an adapter to connect the TI 20 Pin connector to the standard 20 pin ARM JTAG connector used by the J-link.

To my knowledge, they are at least two solutions:

The J-Link has software support for both Windows and Linux. I have been using it with the Starterware and my beaglebone black on both Windows and Linux systems with success to this day. It has been working fine with a bunch of different Cortex-M0+, M0, M3, and M4 as well.

Unfortunately, I don't have been experimenting with other JTAG probes...

Frant
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From what I have read, the JTAG emulator that allows you to use the free license to Code Composer Studio with the Beaglebone Black is the XDS100v2. Here is a link to it:

https://store.ti.com/TMDSEMU100V2U-20T-XDS100v2-JTAG-Emulator-20-pin-compact-TI-connector-P1848.aspx

I just bought one myself to use with the BBB. I have not tried it yet though.

Tom Olenik
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You don't necessarily need JTAG to test them. You can build it and put it in a path in your filesystem, then during boot, ask your bootloader i.e. u-boot to load it and then jump there and execute it.

Mehran Memarnejad
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