**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Sun May 12 03:00:31 2019
May 12 18:06:16 <fernandomc> Hi, quick question. Has anyone run into issues with connecting the PocketBeagle to Mac?
May 12 18:06:38 <zmatt> it shouldn't have any
May 12 18:06:44 <fernandomc> I think it might be the cable I have is not Type A or that I'm connecting through an adapter. But I'm not sure what cable I need the
May 12 18:07:00 <fernandomc> then* for one of the new backbook pros that only have USB-C connectors
May 12 18:07:22 <zmatt> just a micro-usb cable
May 12 18:07:34 <zmatt> usb-c to micro-usb in that case
May 12 18:08:03 <zmatt> basically any cable that will fit on both sides *should* work, unless the cable itself is plain bad :P
May 12 18:08:21 <fernandomc> Ok, I'll give that a shot then. I was using a Micro USB --> USB --> Adapter --> USB-C so something in there must have messed it up. Only the power light was going on
May 12 18:08:24 <zmatt> the mac is not detecting the pocketbeagle is plugged in at all?
May 12 18:08:45 <fernandomc> The power light goes on but the device doesn't show up at all.
May 12 18:08:55 <zmatt> that doesn't sound like an usb-related problem at all
May 12 18:09:15 <zmatt> that sounds like your microSD card isn't bootable
May 12 18:09:40 <fernandomc> Hmmm. I'll take a closer look at it then. I loaded the image onto it but I'll try with another card
May 12 18:10:22 <zmatt> the pocketbeagle doesn't need to be connected to a computer to boot, even a usb charger would work
May 12 18:10:53 <fernandomc> And I'd see the USR lights if it was booting correctly?
May 12 18:11:08 <zmatt> you'd see more led activity than just the power led yes
May 12 18:11:45 <fernandomc> Ok thank you. Should I be loading the compressed or uncompressed image onto the card? I assumed the uncompressed but I tried both but got the same results.
May 12 18:12:57 <zmatt> if you use etcher to write the image to sd card it doesn't matter, it will decompress it automatically
May 12 18:13:15 <zmatt> what's the name of the image file you're trying to use?
May 12 18:13:50 <fernandomc> bone-debian-9.5-iot-armhf-2018-10-07-4gb.img
May 12 18:14:03 <zmatt> okay, that is indeed the right one
May 12 18:14:19 <zmatt> how are you writing it to sd card?
May 12 18:15:06 <fernandomc> Dragging and dropping it in Finder?
May 12 18:15:14 <fernandomc> Do I need to reformat the card?
May 12 18:15:48 <zmatt> the image needs to be written onto the card itself, not be copied as a file to an existing filesystem on the card
May 12 18:15:57 <zmatt> https://beagleboard.org/getting-started
May 12 18:17:27 <zmatt> it may be possible to do with disk utility, but the recommended way to flash sd cards is using https://etcher.io
May 12 18:17:31 <fernandomc> Ahhhh, got it! Thank you!
May 12 18:17:38 <fernandomc> That's for sure my issue
May 12 18:17:50 <fernandomc> I was following the simplified instructions on the package.
May 12 18:19:18 <zmatt> hmm, what do those say?
May 12 18:19:40 <fernandomc> "Transfer the image to the microSD card"
May 12 18:19:45 <fernandomc> So not very detailed hahah
May 12 18:19:57 <zmatt> oh yeah, that's not a choice of words I would have used
May 12 18:20:57 <fernandomc> "It can't be this easy" was in my head for sure. Thanks for your help!
May 12 18:23:53 <zmatt> to be fair, to make a bootable medium (whether sd card, usb stick, or otherwise) containing any OS for any device, merely copying the image file to the medium as a file is never going to work
May 12 18:25:14 <zmatt> (I'm probably oversimplifying and no doubt someone knows of some oddball case where that's exactly how you make a bootable medium for some obscure device, but whatever :P )
May 12 18:26:13 <fernandomc> Yeah, some part of me was thinking that after making other bootable USBs and such. But this seemed new and I was thinking, maybe this damn thing just auto-installed with some black magic lol
May 12 18:28:21 <zmatt> the word "Transfer" feels particularly ill-chosen in that sentence.  "Write the image to the microSD card" would already have been much better
May 12 18:29:14 <zmatt> explicitly mentioning etcher.io would have been a better choice though
May 12 18:29:58 <zmatt> or don't include any "brief" instructions, just give a link to the getting-started page :P
May 12 18:31:15 <fernandomc> It worked!
May 12 18:31:20 <fernandomc> Now getting those other pretty lights
May 12 18:31:26 <fernandomc> Thanks zmatt!
May 12 18:32:02 <fernandomc> I'm writing up a more detailed guide because someone donated 10 of these to a meetup I run so if you want it just lmk!
May 12 18:35:02 <fernandomc> Hah, well it got me a step closer anyway
May 12 18:35:22 <fernandomc> The lights are working but it's still not recognized on the mac
May 12 18:36:04 <fernandomc> Now I think it could be because I don't have a USB Type A cable
May 12 18:37:16 <zmatt> "type A" is a connector, not a cable
May 12 18:37:43 <zmatt> the type of connector you need is simply whatever is on your computer, either A or C
May 12 18:37:57 <zmatt> (the other side is micro-B)
May 12 18:38:56 <fernandomc> Another thing I know very little about. Well the device is booting. USR lights are firing away. But the Mac isn't picking anything up
May 12 18:41:07 <zmatt> when you said "Micro USB --> USB" earlier, do you mean this => https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51djySNYPcL._SL1024_.jpg
May 12 18:42:17 <zmatt> are these known-good cables that have previously been used for data transfer? (not merely for charging/powering devices)
May 12 18:43:33 <fernandomc> Sort of, let me get you a visual lol
May 12 18:43:56 <zmatt> "sort of" doesn't sound promising :P
May 12 18:44:33 <fernandomc> https://pasteboard.co/Ieoti5U.jpg
May 12 18:44:41 <fernandomc> Hahaha, I have to use an adapter right now
May 12 18:44:55 <fernandomc> I have no direct microUSB --> USB-C cable
May 12 18:45:21 <zmatt> that shouldn't be a problem though
May 12 18:45:40 <fernandomc> I don't think I've transferred data over this cable before
May 12 18:45:51 <fernandomc> It might just be a power cable if that's possible?
May 12 18:46:29 <zmatt> anything is possible, there's a lot of garbage on the market of usb cables
May 12 18:46:51 <fernandomc> Ok I'll upgrade to a better cable and then we'll see if that fixes it hahah
May 12 18:47:31 <zmatt> it shouldn't be hard to find a micro-usb cable, given that so many devices use them (e.g. most smartphones)
May 12 18:48:57 <fernandomc> I'm pilfering my house as we speak. There were two I was trying but neither was working.
May 12 18:49:29 <zmatt> do you have any other device with a micro-usb port to test the cable?
May 12 18:50:37 <fernandomc> Aha!
May 12 18:50:39 <fernandomc> It was the cable
May 12 18:50:42 <fernandomc> I tried a third one
May 12 18:50:54 <fernandomc> Two were apparently just garbage. This one is a data cable.
May 12 18:51:16 <zmatt> 2 garbage cables out of 3, nice score
May 12 18:51:38 <zmatt> might want to cut those in half so they will never again cause anyone pain :P
May 12 18:51:49 <fernandomc> We have liftoff lol. Wow, who knew how crappy these cables were.
May 12 18:52:06 <fernandomc> Just gonna label them as "Completely trash never use for anything but charging"
May 12 18:53:00 <fernandomc> Alright zmatt. Do you have a twitter? I gotta credit you somehow for saving my butt on this lol
May 12 18:53:49 <zmatt> life is too short to keep crap cables like that when good cables are also dirt cheap :P
May 12 18:53:52 <zmatt> nah
May 12 18:54:33 <fernandomc> Hahah true. But at least one of them was my wife's lol. So I can't cut them in half quite yet
May 12 18:57:29 <fernandomc> Well "zmatt from IRC" it is lol. Thanks for your help!
May 12 18:58:24 <zmatt> :)
**** ENDING LOGGING AT Mon May 13 02:59:56 2019