Boot the Meles

Prepare

Necessary

• Meles
• eMMC larger than 16GB
• Power supply
  • The Meles is powered by a Type-C port with an input voltage of 5V.

Optional

• USB to TTL serial cable
  • Use Serial Console.
• Ethernet cable
  • Meles supports Internet access via WIFI or Ethernet.
  • Ethernet cables are used to connect the Meles to the local network and the Internet.
• USB Type A to Type C Cable
  • Required to use the fastboot command to burn an image into the EMMC.
• USB Keyboard and Mouse
  • The Meles features four USB-A ports and can be equipped with a full-size keyboard and mouse.
• Monitor and HDMI cable
  • The Meles is equipped with a full-size HDMI connector. It is recommended to use a monitor that supports HDMI.
  • Supports up to 3840 x 2160 (4K) resolution.

Download images and tools

You need to use the fasboot utility to burn the image into the eMMC.

• Commands for installing the fasboot utility on Linux: sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb.

You will need to download the following three files:

• u-boot-with-spl-singlerank.bin or u-boot-with-spl-dualrank.bin
  • Choose according to the meles memory size, 4G choose u-boot-with-spl-singlerank.bin, 8G choose u-boot-with-spl-dualrank.bin
• boot.ext
• root-meles-20231210_134926.ext4

Download the system image from Resources Download.

Write images

Here are the steps on how to burn an image to an eMMC using the fasboot utility on a Linux system

• First snap the EMMC into the slot on the back of the meles

• Use the Type-A to Type-C cable to connect the meles to the PC.

  • Type-A port connects to the PC's Type-A port, and Type-C port connects to the meles' Type-C port.

• The following steps need to be performed to put the Meles into burn mode

  • Press and hold the Meles Download Button
  • Reconnect to Type-C port
  • Release the Download Button

• Enter the following command to view the PC side and the device will appear

$ lsusb | grep T-HEAD
Bus 001 Device 045: ID 2345:7654 T-HEAD USB download gadget

• Execute the following command to start burning
  • The u-boot-with-spl.bin file is divided into u-boot-with-spl-singlerank.bin and u-boot-with-spl-dualrank.bin, depending on the memory size of the meles you have.
  • 4G choose u-boot-with-spl-singlerank.bin, 8G choose u-boot-with-spl-dualrank.bin

$ fastboot flash ram u-boot-with-spl.bin
$ fastboot reboot
$ sleep 5
$ fastboot flash uboot u-boot-with-spl.bin
$ fastboot flash boot boot.ext4
$ fastboot flash root rootfs.ext4

• The following figure represents a successful burn-in

Power on

Connect the Meles with a Type-C cable using an adapter (5V) and a HDMI cable to screen.

When the system boots up, the screen Meles is connected to will show the Debian desktop.

Troubleshooting

If you have a problem, go to our community and post to let us know.