In the following image, there is a picture of the BeagleBone Black, with a credit card, so that you can have an idea about the real dimensions of the whole system:

Here are some interesting URLs where you can read some useful information regarding BeagleBone Black:

The main hardware key features of my BeagleBone Black (revision C) are reported in the following table:

Then, the following image shows a top view of the BeagleBone Black, where we can see some interesting things:

From the preceding image, we can see that the BeagleBone Black doesn't look like a PC, but it can act as a PC! The BeagleBone Black is a fully functional single-board computer and can be readily used as a PC if required by connecting a monitor to the HDMI port and attaching a USB keyboard and mouse through a USB hub. However, it is more suited to embedded applications, where it can act as more than a PC due its expansion connectors, and we can stack up to four expansion boards (named capes) that are useful for several purposes.

In this book, we'll see how we can manage (and reinstall) a complete Debian distribution that allows us to have a wide set of ready-to-run software packages, as a normal PC may have (in fact, the Debian ARM version is equivalent to the Debian x86 version). Then, we'll see how we can use the expansion connectors to connect to the board. Several peripherals are used to monitor/control the external environment.

In the following image, as done earlier, there is a picture of the SAMA5D3 Xplained, with a credit card, where we can easily notice that compared to the BeagleBone Black, this board is larger. This is due the fact that we have more connectors and ports mounted on the board. In particular, the expansion connector in the center of the board is Arduino R3 compatible, so we can use its extension boards on it:

Here are some interesting URLs where you can read about SAMA5D3 Xplained:

Note that there are several versions of the SAMA5D3 Xplained board depending on the CPU version, so we can have SATSAMA5D31, SATSAMA5D33, SATSAMA5D34, SATSAMA5D35, and ATSAMA5D36. Each CPU has the same core, but a different peripheral set.

In this book, we will use ATSAMA5D36, and the main hardware key features of this version are reported in the following table:

The following image shows a top view of the SAMA5D3 Xplained, where we can see some interesting things:

This board can also act as a PC, even if it is designed for typical industrial tasks. It can resist in very hostile environment. It has low power consumption and a lot of useful peripherals for professional applications. In contrast to the BeagleBone Black, it has no HDMI connector for external monitor, but it has a dedicated connector for an LCD with touch screen.

Even for this board, we'll install a complete Debian distribution and see how we can use the expansion connectors to connect to the board.

In the following image, there is a picture of the Wandboard, with the same credit card shown earlier:

The board seems quite small, but it's actually composed of two parts: the core module is on top of the interface (or carrier) module (see the following image):

Here are some interesting URLs where you can gain some useful information regarding your Wandboard:

Note that there are several versions of the Wandboard board depending on the CPU version, so we can have the Wandboard Solo, Wandboard Dual, and Wandboard Quad. Each version has a different CPU with the same core but a different peripheral set and core numbers. In fact, the Wandboard is available as a single-, dual-, and quad-core CPU!

In this book, we will use the Wandboard Quad (revision C1), and the main hardware key features of this version are reported in the following table:

The following two images show the bottom and top views of the Wandboard, where we can see some interesting things. Here are the features of the bottom side of the board:

On the top side (we split the core module on the left and the interface board on the right) we have:

This board too can act as a PC, and that's why we will install a complete Debian distribution on it too. This board, as in the case of the BeagleBone Black, has a HDMI connector for external monitor.