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SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board - Getting Started Guide for Linux®

Last modified by Microchip on 2025/02/03 16:27

Introduction

Thank you for taking the time to evaluate the SAMA7D65 Curiosity Development Board. This instruction will guide you through running the demonstration application that comes with the kit. For a deeper dive into the features and capability of the kit, refer to the links provided in the "Learn More" section of this guide.

Confirm the following components are present in the box:

  • SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board (P/N: EV63J76A)
  • SD card
  • USB-A to USB-C cable (power)

Required components not included in the box:

  • Serial to USB dongle
  • Ethernet cable

This getting started guide will allow you to perform an iPerf networking test between your Linux® PC (acting as TCP Client) and the SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board running Linux (acting as TCP server), through your local network infrastructure.

Information

Note: The instructions in this manual are intended for the iPerf3 version of the networking test service available in Linux distribution.  

Setup

Download the image

Download the Yocto Project® image from the image-link repository.

Place it in any directory of your choice.

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Copy the downloaded file into the SD memory card using balenaEtcher.

Insert the SD memory card into the host computer.

Download, install and run balenaEtcher.

Select the downloaded linux4sam-poky-sama7d65_curiosity-headless-sama7d65-ea-1.0.img.bz2.

balenaEtcher window Flash from File button

Click Select target to download.

balenaEtcher window Select Target button

Select the mounted SD card.

balenaEtcher  Select target window

Select Flash.

balenaEtcher window Flash button

The SD card will be ready for use once flashing is completed.

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Connect the components as described in the following steps:

Ethernet cable to J14 connector.

SD card inserted in the SD Boot J10 slot (bottom side of the board).

Serial USB dongle to UART DEBUG J35 header.

USB-A to USB-C cable to J3 USB-C port for power.

SAMA7D65 development board and connected components

 

Information

Note:

  • The SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board serial terminal set up in Step 4 will be referred to as "TCP Server" terminal.
  • The host computer command line started in Step 6 will be referred to as "TCP Client" prompt. 

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Set Up and Start the SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board Serial Terminal

Set up the SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board serial terminal on the host computer.

On the host computer, open a serial terminal with the following settings:

  • Baud Rate: 115200
  • Data: 8-bit
  • Parity: None
  • Stop: 1-bit
  • Flow Control: None

Check the serial port in the system.

user@comp:~/test$ dmesg | egrep
                     -i 'serial|ttyUSB'

Confirm the serial port settings, assuming ttyUSB0 is the hardware connected.

user@comp:~/test$ stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0 -a

Set the parameters.

user@comp:~/test$ stty -F /dev/ttyUSB0
             115200 cs8 -cstopb -parenb

Set the serial port to use, for example ttyS0 is selected.

user@comp:~/test$ setserial -g /dev/ttyUSB0

A built-in serial emulator is "cu". Assuming  /dev/ttyUSB0 is the terminal you want to use, run cu: 

user@comp:~/test$ cu -l dev/ttyUSB0

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Press the RESET (SW4) button on the SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board to force a reset.

When the system is ready, the serial terminal you set up in Step 4 will show a prompt. This is the TCP Server terminal.

Verify the login prompt is shown on the TCP Server terminal.

TCP Server terminal

Type or enter "root" to log in. No password is required.

Getting a lease with the DHCP server should be automatic. To make sure, on the TCP Server terminal, type "udhcp" in the command line:  

# udhcpc 

TCP Server terminal udhcpc

On the TCP Server terminal, type "ifconfig" on the command line and verify the internet address is assigned to the SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board.

# ifconfig 

TCP Server terminal ifconfig

Note the address assigned. This will be used to run the iPerf3 test.  In the screenshot, the address assigned is 10.10.63.63.

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Perform the test where SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board is the TCP Server.

On the TCP Server terminal, run the iperf3 command:

# iperf3 -s -i 1

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Start the PC Command Line

On the host computer run a command line application to execute the iPerf application.

Run the Linux terminal program:

Run Linux Terminal Program

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On the TCP Client Terminal Program started in Step 7 of the host computer, execute the iperf3 command with the noted internet address assigned (which is 10.14.63.63 in the screenshot) in Step 5.5.

user@computer-name:~$ iperf -c 10.14.63.63 -i 1 -t 5

This will execute a test where the SAMA7D65 Curiosity Board functions as the TCP Server and the iPerf application runs on the host computer as the TCP Client.

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Confirm the test results in the TCP Server serial terminal used in Step 7.

The TCP Server terminal will show the results of the test similar to the accompanying image.

TCP Server Terminal results

 

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References

Troubleshooting

Common

The serial terminal is not showing anything.

There are multiple possible reasons why the terminal does not show anything:

  • Double-check that the RX-TX signals of the serial cable are properly connected to the RX-TX signals of the board.
  • Double-check that the ground signal is properly connected.
  • Verify that the SD card contains the right files.

Running the iperf command in the host terminal results in a "Connection refused" error.

[  1] tcp connect to 10.14.63.70 port 5001 failed (Connection refused) on 2024-05-31 11:43:21 (US Mountain Standard Time)

Verify the IP address used when sending the iperf command matches the target IP address.
The terminal shows a RomBOOT message.
  • Verify that the SD card contains the right files.
  • Verify that the SD card is inserted properly.
I ran 'cu' in Linux command line, how do I exit? Press keys Shift and ~ (tilde) then the . (dot) key and cu will exit and return to the command line.

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