You can write a small amount of python to test that the image you have created works correctly.
The following is a tiny python script that takes an image from the camera and displays it on the built-in screen.
Connect to the device via the serial link or over ssh.
Create a test.py file with the
#!/usr/bin/env python from maix import display, camera while True: display.show(camera.capture()) Make the script executable via
The easiest way to check that the SD Card you have created is working is to connect to the device over the serial port.
Picocom is a great tool providing terminal emulation over USB serial.
For OSX a quick install can be performed via :
brew install picocom
Plug your Mac USB-C cable into the USB-UART port on the Maix 2 board.
You can connect to the device using the USB serial device.
All the forum posts I could find assumed access to either Windows or Linux machines to burn the firmware onto an SD card. I needed a couple of goes at this when trying from my Mac.
The main issue I had was how to remove and recreate one partition from the initial image.
i.e. how to grow that partition to use the remaining space on the SD Card. I found a way of using Virtualbox to do this as outlined below.
I recently bought a Sipeed Maix II Dock. For my purposes, it’s an IOT device with a camera and screen that can also run a complete Linux environment. The core board is fairly cheap, and even the docked version comes in at around £20.
The full specifications of the board are available from SeedStudio
Getting this running has been a bit of a journey for me. Between using a Mac as my primary OS and struggling with the Chinese forums I’d not been able to find a “how to get started” site that worked for me.