A couple questions before getting an A13 OLinuXino

[sauerkraut]

Hello, I have a couple questions I would like to get answered before I purchase an A13 OLinuXino.

Eventually I am looking to create a custom board for the Allwinner A13 SoC and I want to use the OLinuXino as a development tool for the software side of the project.

If I use the olimex sd card image and boot into the OLinuXino with a vga lcd screen connected will a linux console appear?

Also, once i move to a custom board will it be possible to use the USB OTG to ssh into the board to use it as a headless computer? This is important as my board will have no way to connect a display.

Also in the older Allwinner datasheets it says there are only 2 UART's on the A13, yet on the latest one (available from Allwinner's github page) it says there are 4 available. Are all 4 of these UART's available to use for application code? or are some of them dedicated to using as a debug output for the kernel?

Thanks very much for the help!

[JohnS]

You're going to have to build your own kernel etc for your board so get an Olimex board and start doing that.  Then you can do all you ask I think.

John

[Gerrit]

If I use the olimex sd card image and boot into the OLinuXino with a vga lcd screen connected will a linux console appear?

Yes you can switch to a console, but you boot in to a LXDE Desktop Environment (graphical)

Also, once i move to a custom board will it be possible to use the USB OTG to ssh into the board to use it as a headless computer? This is important as my board will have no way to connect a display.

Yes if you compile the modules needed, http://linux-sunxi.org/USB_Gadget#USB_Ethernet_support

[sauerkraut]

Awesome, I'm not worried about building my own kernel to do what I need, but I'll most certainly get a tried and tested board to test software (and then I'll have tried and tested software for my custom hardware).

Thanks guys!