FPP 5.x/4.x/3.x Installation Instructions

[dkulp]

The installation instructions for the 5.x/4.x/v3.x images is a bit different than the old images or the images for the Pi's.  As a start, I highly suggest watching the excellent video:



That will provide a good walk through an introduction on how to get started.  The FPP Manual also has complete instructions on installing and getting things started:
https://falconchristmas.github.io/FPP_Manual(5.0).pdf

However, if videos and large PDF's are not your thing, here are some written instructions.

• Download the latest image from https://github.com/FalconChristmas/fpp/releases and unzip it to your computer someplace.  This should create a single file with a ".img" extension.
• Burn the image onto an SD card.  The SD card needs to be at LEAST a 4GB SD card.  Unlike the previous images and the Pi images, you cannot just unzip the image onto the card directly.  You need to use a program such as "ApplePi Baker" or "Etcher" to burn the image onto the SD card.  If you've never done this before, the Beaglebone community has some good instructions:  https://beagleboard.org/getting-started#update . The main reason is that the v2.0 image is a full "Linux" EXT4 partition.  Once the image is burned, Windows or OSX will NOT be able to read the full SD card as it's not a FAT filesystem that they understand. The Pi image has a very small FAT "boot" partition, but most of the data is on an ext4 partition that Windows/OSX cannot access.
• Place the SD card into the Pi/BBB, connect a network cable, and power it.  On the BeagleBones, if this is the first time an v2.x image is used, you will need to hold down the S2 button (button nearest the SD card) to get it to boot from the SD card instead of the eMMC.  This only needs to be done once per BeagleBone.
• After 30 seconds or so, it should be completely up and running.  It should have grabbed an IP address via DHCP.  You may need to look at your router to determine which IP was assigned.  Most of the time, you can point your browser at http://fpp or http://fpp.local , but occasionally you will need to determine the IP address using information from the router or using a network scan tool (like nmap)

At this point, FPP is completely up and running and ready to be used from the SD card.  If you plan on only running FPP from the SD card, that is all you need to do.  Start configuring the storage locations, time zones, network settings, etc...  If you pan to use the SD card for storage as well, you will likely need to expand the partition.  By default, it will be a 3GB partition (to fit on a 4GB card), but it won't leave much space for sequences.  Assuming you are using a larger card, you can expand it by going to the Settings -> Advanced Settings and click on the button to expand the partition.  Then reboot.  You should then have the full size of your SD card available. 


On the full BeagleBones, if you would like to run FPP from the eMMC, you need to flash the image there.  To do so, go to the Settings -> Advanced Settings and hit the Flash to eMMC button.  Then wait a LONG LONG time.  It can easily take 30-45 minutes to copy everything over.  It should shut down automatically when done.  Remove the SD card and re-power on the Beaglebone.  That should have you running off the eMMC.

[dkulp]

If you power the BeagleBone via a USB cable connected to your computer for the initial boot, configuring the BeagleBone is simplified.  You can point your browser at http://192.168.7.2 (Windows) or http://192.168.6.2 (OSX) and it should be fully up and running.   You can then configure the WIFI settings and network IP addresses and such directly without having to determine the DHCP IP address.   Additionally, the DHCP address it DID grab is printed in the header of the pages so you directly see what address was assigned.


The "Wireless" BeagleBones (BBBW and BBGW), since they don't have a wired connection, will boot up with a Tethering option enabled.  After boot up, look for a new WIFI network named "FPP-####" (the last 4 digits are randomish).  Connect to that from your computer using the Wifi password of "Christmas".   Then browse to http://192.168.8.1  .  Configure like normal.   For the wireless controllers, there is now a "Disable BBB Tethering" option on the FPP settings page to turn this off once you have everything configured.  We highly recommend you turn that off. 


Note:  the BBBW is completely compatible with all the common capes that we use.  The Octoscroller and F4-B/F8-B/F16-B controllers should work fine.   The BBGW, on the other hand, consumes various pins, and the current capes have issues.  We do not recommend using a BBGW.