Template:FriendlyCoreGeneral

1 Work with FriendlyCore

1.1 Introduction

FriendlyCore is a light Linux system without X-windows, based on ubuntu core, It uses the Qt-Embedded's GUI and is popular in industrial and enterprise applications.

Besides the regular Ubuntu core's features our FriendlyCore has the following additional features:

• it supports our LCDs with both capacitive touch and resistive touch(S700, X710, HD702, S430, HD101 and S70)
• it supports WiFi
• it supports Ethernet
• it supports Bluetooth and has been installed with bluez utilities
• it supports audio playing
• it supports Qt5.9 EGLES and OpenGL ES1.1/2.0 (Only for S5P4418/S5P6818)

1.2 FriendlyCore's User Accounts

• If your board is connected to an HDMI monitor you need to use a USB mouse and keyboard.
• If you want to do kernel development you need to use a serial communication board, ie a PSU-ONECOM board, which will allow you to operate the board via a serial terminal.Here is a setup where we connect a board to a PC via the PSU-ONECOM and you can power on your board from either the PSU-ONECOM or its MicroUSB:

For example, NanoPi-M1：

You can use a USB to Serial conversion board too.
Make sure you use a 5V/2A power to power your board from its MicroUSB port:
For example, NanoPi-M1：

• FriendlyCore User Accounts:

Non-root User:

   User Name: pi
   Password: pi

Root:

   User Name: root
   Password: fa

The system is automatically logged in as "pi". You can do "sudo npi-config" to disable auto login.

• Update packages

$ sudo apt-get update

1.3 Configure System with npi-config

The npi-config is a commandline utility which can be used to initialize system configurations such as user password, system language, time zone, Hostname, SSH switch , Auto login and etc. Type the following command to run this utility.

$ sudo npi-config

Here is how npi-config's GUI looks like:

1.4 Develop Qt Application

Please refer to: How to build Qt application

1.5 Setup Program to AutoRun

You can setup a program to autorun on system boot with npi-config:

sudo npi-config

Go to Boot Options -> Autologin -> Qt/Embedded, select Enable and reboot.

1.6 Extend TF Card's Section

When FriendlyCore is loaded the TF card's section will be automatically extended.You can check the section's size by running the following command:

$ df -h

1.7 WiFi

You can use the NetworkManager utility in FriendlyCore to manage its network. You can run "nmcli" in the commandline utility to start it. Here are the commands to start a WiFi connection:

• Check device list

sudo nmcli dev

Note: if the status of a device is "unmanaged" it means that device cannot be accessed by NetworkManager. To make it accessed you need to clear the settings under "/etc/network/interfaces" and reboot your system.

• Start WiFi

sudo nmcli r wifi on

• Scan Surrounding WiFi Sources

sudo nmcli dev wifi

• Connect to a WiFi Source

sudo nmcli dev wifi connect "SSID" password "PASSWORD"

The "SSID" and "PASSWORD" need to be replaced with your actual SSID and password.If you have multiple WiFi devices you need to specify the one you want to connect to a WiFi source with iface
If a connection succeeds it will be automatically setup on next system reboot.

For more details about NetworkManager refer to this link: Use NetworkManager to configure network settings

• Use USB WiFi

Our OS system has support for popular USB WiFi drivers. Many USB WiFi modules are plug and play with our system. Here is a list of models we tested;

Number	Model
1	RTL8188CUS 802.11n WLAN Adapter
2	RT2070 Wireless Adapter
3	RT2870/RT3070 Wireless Adapter
4	RTL8192CU Wireless Adapter
5	mi WiFi mt7601

1.8 Ethernet Connection

If a board is connected to a network via Ethernet before it is powered on it will automatically obtain an IP with DHCP activated after it is powered up. If you want to set up a static IP refer to: Use NetworkManager to configure network settings。

1.9 Bluetooth

If your board has an onboard bluetooth module you can search for surrounding bluetooth devices by running the following command:

hcitool scan

You can run "hciconfig" to check bluetooth's status.

1.10 Audio via HDMI or 3.5mm Audio Jack

By default our system's audio via either HDMI or 3.5mm audio jack is not enabled because the package for audio is not installed in our system. If you want to enable audio you need to install the alsa packages.

• 　Firstly make sure your board is installed with our latest Debian image and is connected to the internet;
• 　After your board is booted run the following commands to install the alsa packages:

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install libasound2
$ apt-get install alsa-base
$ apt-get install alsa-utils

• After installation is done copy an audio file with the extension of ".wav" to your board, connect an earphone to your board's 3.5mm audio jack and play this audio file by running the following command:

$ aplay /root/Music/test.wav

• By default system's audio output is set to the board's 3.5mm audio jack. If you want to switch the audio output to HDMI you can run the following command:
  

Firstly check all the audio devices by running the following command. In our test we got a similar result as follows:

$ aplay -l
card 0: 3.5mm codec
card 1: HDMI

Here "card 0" stands for the 3.5mm audio jack and "card 1" stands for HDMI. You can change the configuration file "/etc/asound.conf" as follows:

pcm.!default {
    type hw
    card 1
    device 0
}
 
ctl.!default {
    type hw
    card 1
}

Reboot your board and your change will be effective.