CuBox-i Quick Start Guide

Revision and Notes

Date	Owner	Revision	Notes

Date	Owner	Revision	Notes
Sep 26, 2021		1.0	Initial release
Table of Contents	1 Revision and Notes 2 Introduction 3 Hardware Setup 3.1 Product Specifications 3.2 Block Diagram 3.3 Visual features overview 4 Software Setup 4.1 Cable setup and prerequisites 5 Booting form an SD card 6 Install to eMMC 7 More Features 7.1 Internet 7.1.1 Wi-fi 7.2 Bluetooth 7.3 Install GUI Support 7.3.1 Wayland 8 List Of Supported OS 9 Build U-Boot & Kernel from sources 10 Documentation 11 Related Articles

Introduction

The following quick start guide provides background information about the CuBox-i.

The guide will give a technical overview about the product and by the end of it you should be able to boot an operating system and begin testing your application.

Hardware Setup

Product Specifications

Model	CuBox i1	CuBox i2	CuBox i2eX	CuBox i4P
I/Os	2 x USB 2.0 1 x eSATA	2 x USB 2.0 1 x eSATA	2 x USB 2.0 1 x eSATA	2 x USB 2.0 1 x eSATA
Networking	1 x Ethernet RJ45 10/100/1000 (max 470 MB/s) 1 x 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth (2.4 GHz)	1 x Ethernet RJ45 10/100/1000 (max 470 MB/s) 1 x 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth (2.4 GHz)	1 x Ethernet RJ45 10/100/1000 (max 470 MB/s) 1 x 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth (2.4 GHz)	1 x Ethernet RJ45 10/100/1000 (max 470 MB/s) 1 x 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth (2.4 GHz)
Processor	NXP i.MX 6 Single core Arm Cortex A9 up to 1GHz	NXP i.MX 6 Dual Lite core Arm Cortex A9 up to 1GHz	NXP i.MX 6 Dual core Arm Cortex A9 up to 1GHz	NXP i.MX 6 Quad core Arm Cortex A9 up to 1GHz
Memory & Storage	512MB DDR3 8GB eMMC MicroSD	1GB DDR3 8GB eMMC MicroSD	1GB DDR3 8GB eMMC MicroSD	2GB DDR3 8GB eMMC MicroSD
Display	HDMI	HDMI	HDMI	HDMI
Misc.	Reset button RTC IR reciver	Reset button RTC IR reciver	Reset button RTC IR reciver	Reset button RTC IR reciver
Development and Debug interfaces	Micro USB	Micro USB	Micro USB	Micro USB
Power	5V	5V	5V	5V
Expansion card I/Os	None	None	None	None
Temperature	Commercial: 0°C to 40°C	Commercial: 0°C to 40°C	Commercial: 0°C to 40°C	Commercial: 0°C to 40°C
Dimensions	50 x 50 x 50mm	50 x 50 x 50mm	50 x 50 x 50mm	50 x 50 x 50mm
Enclosure	ABS Plastic	ABS Plastic	ABS Plastic	ABS Plastic

Supported with i.MX6 SOM. For more detailed information about our SOM-i.MX6 series please visit this user manual : i.MX6 SOM Hardware User Manual.

Block Diagram

The following figure describes the i.MX6 Block Diagram.

Visual features overview

Back HW interfaces

Top Hardware View

A demonstration of how to connect your cables and other peripherals to your CuBox-i can be found here : How to connect cables and peripherals to your CuBox-i

Software Setup

Cable setup and prerequisites

Micro USB cable
Power supplier : regulated 5V supply with 2A source capacity (3A for CuBox-i4pro)
Micro SD card
Linux or Windows PC
Router or switch with Ethernet cable

Note that using an adaptor with an output voltage which is higher than 5V will damage your device and possibly other connected USB devices.

Booting form an SD card

1. Downloading the Debian image

Download the Debian image by running the following command on your Linux/Windows PC:

wget https://solid-run-images.sos-de-fra-1.exo.io/IMX6/Debian/sr-imx6-debian-bullseye-20220712-cli-sdhc.img.xz

For more Debian releases, please visit Debian Release.

2. Writing the image to the SD card

Use the following commands for writing the image to an SD card:

xz -dc sr-imx6-debian-bullseye-20220712-cli-sdhc.img.xz | dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M conv=fsync

For more information, please visit Flashing an SD Card .

Note: Plug a micro SD into your Linux PC, the following assumes that the micro SD is added as /dev/sdX and all it’s partitions are unmounted.

3. SD card insertion

Please Insert the SD card into your device.

4. Power connection

Connect your power adaptor to the DC jack, and then connect the adaptor to mains supply.

A red LED will light up at the front panel. This is an indication of boot loader firmware is running.If you find you need additional help, please contact us and we’ll do our best to get back to you with more personal support.

5. Serial Connection

Please insert the micro USB into your device, then you can refer to Serial Connection for installing necessary serial connection software in Linux/Windows.

Once you installed the necessary serial connection software, you should be able to see the following:

In order to be able to log in , please insert “debian” as a username and password as follows:

Install to eMMC

You can follow this document Install to eMMC to install debian to an eMMC device.

More Features

Internet

If you have purchased CuBox-i1 or CuBox-i2 first connect an Ethernet cable to your CuBox-i (for internet access during boot-up). Models CuBox-i2ex and CuBox-i4Pro (Or CuBox i1 / i2 with WiFi function), can be connected via Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet.

Please check you Ethernet connection.
Use the following commands in order to keep your system up-to-date:

apt-get update 
apt-get upgrade 
reboot

For more detailed information, please refer to i.MX6 Debian .

Wi-fi

You can connect to WiFi using any application, such as : connmanctl or wpa_spplicant.

An example for connecting to WiFi using wpa_supplicant:

1. To bring a WiFi interface up, run the following :

ifconfig wlan0 up

To discover your wireless network interface name, see Network Interfaces.

2. Install the wpa_supplicant package:

apt-get install wpasupplicant

3. Edit network interfaces file :

At the bottom of the file, add the following lines to allow wlan as a network connection:

cat <<EOF > /etc/network/interfaces.d/wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface default inet dhcp

EOF

4. Create a configuration file with the relevant ssid:

cat <<EOF > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
ctrl_interface=/run/wpa_supplicant
update_config=1

network={
    ssid="MYSSID"
    psk="passphrase" 
}

EOF

Check your personal ssids by running : ‘iw dev wlan0 scan’

5. Make sure it works:

Restart your device and it should connect to the wireless network. If it doesn't, repeat above steps or get help from an adult.

For more information about using wpa_supplicant , you can refer to wpa_supplicant or wpa_supplicant.

Bluetooth

For showing all Bluetooth devices, run the following:

apt-get install bluez
hciconfig -a

2. Choose a device, and turn it on:

hciconfig hci0 up

3.Set up the Bluetooth name:

hciconfig hci0 name 'SolidRun_Ble'

4. Make your Bluetooth detectable by other devices:

hciconfig hci0 piscan

5. If you want to connect to other devices:

Start by scanning for other Bluetooth devices:

hcitool scan

Choose a MAC address and connect :

rfcomm connect 0 $MAC 10 &

You can check the communication between the devices by writing :

l2ping -c 4 $MAC

Install GUI Support

Note that HDMI doesn’t display anything by default.

Wayland

1. Install weston :

sudo apt install weston

Connect your HDMI cable and you should be able to see the following :

By default one application is available, the terminal emulator, at the upper left corner.

2. Start weston FROM A PHYSICAL TERMINAL (from the above terminal, not remote or serial session) :

weston-launch -- --backend=drm-backend.so

Make sure to run the above without sudo.

This will bring up the following:

For more applications, you can refer to GUI Support to install X11, OpenGL-ES, GStreamer, or you can follow this page Gnome for installing Gnome desktop.

List Of Supported OS

OS

OS
	i.MX6 Debian
	Yocto for i.MX6
	i.MX6 Archlinux
	XBian for i.MX6

Build U-Boot & Kernel from sources

Build a Linux kernel - i.MX6 Kernel
Build a U-Boot - i.MX6 U-Boot

Documentation

	File	Modified
Labels No labels Preview View	ZIP Archive cubox-i-plastic-model.zip	Oct 10, 2021 by SolidRun
Labels No labels Preview View	PDF File CuBox-I schematics.pdf	Oct 21, 2021 by SolidRun

Download All

Page:
Flashing an SD Card (Developer Center)
- flash-sd-card
Page:
Serial-Console USB->UART (Developer Center)
- serial-imx6
Page:
Serial Connection (Developer Center)
- serial-connection