Setting up a foundation for the exercises

Let's go through a few basics for all the exercises in this book. The exercises in this book should work with the BeagleBone powered by the USB interface for the majority of users. However, a minority of users might have a desktop/laptop not permitting enough power to be drawn from the USB port. In this case, you will need the barrel power adapter as described in Chapter 1, Introducing the Beagle Boards.

All the exercises in this book assume that you will interact with the BeagleBone over the USB interface. To do this, you will need an SSH client suitable for your laptop/desktop. Refer to Chapter 1, Introducing the Beagle Boards, for examples of SSH clients on Linux and Windows. To recap the basics, the process is as follows:

1. Plug in the USB port and allow the BeagleBone to boot up.
2. Start the SSH client.
3. Connect to 192.168.7.2 using the SSH client.
4. Log in as root.

After a successful login, you will be at a shell prompt similar to this:

foo $
$
#...