Getting started with your new Balloon board
This page assumes you have just got your shiny new Balloon and are wondering how to set it up and use it.
Quick Start
- Power up the board.
Power is three holes in the top right hand corner -marked 0v, 3V, 5V, which expect a regulated supply within 0.3V of the right voltage. Boards may need 3.3V or 5V or both, depending on the power options fitted. The PSU needs to be able to supply a surge current of > 800mA to start up reliably. Typical current is ~350mA running, ~180mA idling (at 3.3V). There is also the vehicle-power option. (See PowerOptions for details on what's possible, how versions were shipped, and how to identify what you've got.)
- Connect a serial terminal
- RS232, 115200 baud, 8N1, No hardware or software flow control. Serial is J* 10pin connector on front of board near the Xilinx chip. You should have been supplied with a cable from this to 9pin D with the board.
On applying power (or pushing the reset button (blue momentary action button)), you will see nothing for 10 seconds. During this time you can press a key to get to the bootloader - and will then see a Boot> prompt. If no kernel is installed then you will also get to this prompt. See (BootLdr) for documentation on the bootloader.
If left to complete you will see the linux console boot messages (BootExample) finishing with Starting thttpd... and finally a dollar prompt at the top of the (uncleared) screen.
By default the supplied distro logs in the autorun user. To login as root the password is rootme (as in the familiar distribution).