Welcome to official web site related to the FOX Board G20 a Linux Embedded Single Board Computer built on an Atmel ARM9 CPU at 400MHz with 64MByte of RAM, 8MByte of dataflash memory, 2 USB 2.0 host ports, 1 Ethernet port, a microSD socket and a lot of GPIOs, serial interfaces, etc.

• FOX Board G20 features and costs.

The FOX Board G20 is an appliance of Netus G20 a 40×40 mm, 8 layers CPU module available from Acme Systems to minimize the time-to-market, risks and costs of the ARM9 boards design.

• Netus G20 features and costs

On this web site you will find tutorials, examples, schematics, news, articles, links, forums, etc. related to the hardware and software aspects that will help you to design your own embedded application.

The development tools for any languages are fully open source and freely downloadable from the Web as shown below. A starter kit with all the hardware you need to getting start with the FOX Board G20 is available on our Acme Systems eShop.

• Starter kit features and costs

Daisy is a new cabling system and a set of new modules that Acme Systems are designing to make easy and fast the design of new devices based on FOX Board G20/Netus G20.

Read the preview...

• The file systems goes in read-only mode
• The first sector of dataflash is erased when the PA31 line (J6.21 on the FOX Board G20) is mantained low at startup This is a software feature currently implemented on any FOX Board G20 that could give problems if ignored during hardware development of project based on Netus G20 or FOX Board G20
• The FOX Board G20 doesn't work without the RTC backup battery This problem affects the FOX Board G20 shipped before March 9th, 2010
• The board hangs after RomBOOT message on the Debug Port: CASE 1 This problem affects the FOX Board G20 shipped before December 20th, 2009

Temperature logger. How to build a Web-enabled temperature logger using a 1-wire thermal sensor, Python, PHP, SQLite, FusionCharts, etc.

EPS - Extended Power Supply module.

• BlueTweeter by Daricom is a bluetooth device designed to send multimedia messages to cellphones, PDAs, smartphones… and to any device which is able to accept bluetooth connections and which is placed at most about 100 meters from the BlueTweeter (visit the home page).
• Photoelectric pallet load detection device by Peter Dahlman (visit the home page).
• FOXBOXG20 by Kdev (visit the home page) a SMS/MMS gateway and networking monitor equipment.

• Getting started with the FOX Board G20
• Discovering the IP address How to find the FOX IP address
• Using the SSH session How to access the command line prompt (shell)
• Using the SCP session How to transfer and edit files on the FOX
• Access to the WEB server
• How to set a static IP address

FOX Board G20 is a full features Linux systems and as like as any other Linux system a lot of different languages and developing methods are available from the Open Source universe. Acme Systems doesn't release any official Software Development Kit (SDK) for the FOX Board because is a no-sense on this environment, otherwise we suggest how to identify and use the powerfull, free and standard tools available on Internet. Below is a non-comprehensive and continuously updated list of IDE, languages, tools, compilers, cross-compilers, interpreters, byte-code generators, etc, etc. useable to develop code for your FOX Board G20.

Using this method you don't need to install any SDK on your PC. You can edit and run the code directly on the FOX Board:

• Installing the C compiler for in-board development
• Installing the C++ compiler for in-board development

• C/C++ development using Eclipse on Windows systems
• Installing the toolchain to cross compile the Linux Kernel and non-Kernel applications

By definition the interpreted languages are executed directly on the target system so you can edit the source code directly on the FOX filesystems and run in from the command line:

• Java How to install the Java Development Kit and execute a simple Hello World! example.
• Python Python is pre-installed by default. This articles illustrates how to run a simple Hello World! example.
• Perl How to install the Perl interpreter and execute a simple Hello World! example.
• Basic How to install the yaBasic interpreter and execute a simple Hello World! example.
• PHP PHP is pre-installed by default. This articles illustrates how to run a simple Hello World! example and see it on your browser.
• Shell scripting The shell is installed by default on any Linux systems. This articles illustrates how to run a simple Hello World! example.

• DEBIAN: Buildind the Linux Kernel
• OPENWRT: Building Linux OpenWrt
• Devmem2 a simple utility to read and write the CPU registers

• Xenomai on FOXG20 by Federico Lolli. Xenomai is a real-time development framework cooperating with the Linux kernel, in order to provide a pervasive, interface-agnostic, hard real-time support to user-space applications, seamlessly integrated into the GNU/Linux environment.

• Webcam streaming
• Wi-Fi dongle
• Using a Barcode Scanner

• Using the SRF02 Ultrasonic range finder in I2C mode

• Using 1-wire Dallas DS18B20 thermal sensor
• OWFS 1-wire filesystem

• SPI devices on FoxG20 board by Antoine Durand

• Using the analog to digital converter by Antonio Galea

• A kernel module for generating PWM signals in bit-banging mode by Antonio Galea

• Using the serial ports How to test and use the serial ports
• Using 4DSystems oLed How to wire and use a 4D systems oLed graphic display

• GPIO lines Blink-a-led and press-a-button examples using the default sysfs interface
• FOX Board G20 pinout

• FOXGM board Getting start with FOXGM extension board

• Sensirion Humidity and Temperature sensor Under construction

• Binary repository Binary files to create bootable microSD
• How to create a bootable microSD. Part1: Partition & Format
• How to create a bootable microSD. Part2: Copy the kernel image and rootfs contents
• Backup your bootable microSD
• Update the kernel image from the binary repository

• AcmeBoot - Boot the Kernel Linux from the microSD without u-boot
• PIZZICA a simple Python ISP utility to change the default boot loader on Dataflash

The following articles are obsolete using AcmeBoot instead of u-Boot:

• Create foxg20-script.bin u-Boot environment file
• Program the serial dataflash memory Reset the 8MB dataflash to the factory default
• In-System programming with SAM-BA Small guide to the Atmel ISP utility to have access to the RAM and Dataflash memory
• u-Boot patch and compiling How to rebuild U-Boot starting from sources

• Upload a file to a FTP server in Python
• Compiling Linux Device Drivers

• How to make a time-lapse video

• FOX Board G20 pinout
• FOX Board G20 schematic
• FOXG Board 20 vs FOX Board LX832
• Netus G20 pinout
• Netus G20 mechanical dimensions
• Netus PS1 - Quad power supply module
• Netus G20 male connector
• Netus G20 female connector
• AT91SAM9G20 microprocessor datasheet

Before to send and email or call Acme Systems please note that we are hardware designers and not Linux gurus so try to post your software questions on the FOX Board G20 forums to be sure that all the contributors of this site and the large software developers community will read your questions.

• FAQ and Troubleshootings
• Forums, RSS feed and IRC channel
• Books about Linux
• Links

Acme Systems provides this documentation “as is” without warranty or guarantees of any kind. A great deal of effort has gone into making this documentation as correct as possible but, due to the huge amount of info incoming from the developer communities, it's always under construction .

Acme Systems doesn't provide any direct support for the Open Source preinstalled software but provides, through these pages and forum posts, all the information to install, use and update the software environments runnable on the FOX Board/Netus G20 platform.

Please note that all the preinstalled softwares, used on the Acme Systems products, are Open Source and so you have to check by yourself the license terms provided by each author (usually the GPL) before use it in any commercial or not product.

Many thanks for their contribute on this documentation to: Lee McLoughlin, Claudio Mignanti, Davide Cantaluppi, Riccardo Ventrella, Stefano Barbato, Sebastien Philippe, Roberto Fasulo, Marcus Folkesson, Andrea Leganza, John Crispin, Luca Pascarella, Marco Cavallini, Tiziano Galizia, Antonio Galea, Matteo Carnevali and to the developers community of the Open Source softwares mentioned on it.

• Read more about the contributors

If you have a web site with your project based on the FOX Board G20 or other materials useful for the FOX users please send us the link to foxg20@acmesystems.it.

By default the FOX Board G20 boots Linux from the microSD card. It's possible to buy a ready-to-use microSD card or create it by yourself following this tutorial.

Here you can find some distributions already installed by the FOX users and used by Acme Systems to write the tutorials but thanks to the ARM9 CPU and to the hardware compatibility with the Atmel AT91SAM9G20-EK evaluation kit a lot of other enviroments can be installed. If you successfully tried other environments please send us any related useful information to add it on this website.

Debian on FOX Board G20 documentation index
How to build Debian for FOX Board G20
Thanks to Lee McLoughlin for this porting

OpenWRT on FOX Board G20 documentation index
Thanks to Claudio Mignanti for this porting

Brief introduction to Gentoo
How to build Gentoo for FOX Board G20
Thanks to Davide Cantaluppi (http://www.kdev.it) for this porting.

KaeilOS is an embedded linux GNU/GPL distribution composed of a collection of the best publicly available Open Source packages. Version 4.00 available since January 2009 has joined OpenEmbedded project offering a wider selection of packages and recipes.

KOAN SAS (http://www.kaeilos.com/) the italian software system integrator that made KaeilOS offers also a commercial support on it.

Riccardo Ventrella wrote a tutorial for who wants to test it quicly on the FOX Board G20: How to build a FOX G20 Linux distro with OpenEmbedded

This is a list of hi-res photo useful for articles, catalogs, web pages, brochures, etc. Feel free to use them but please don't forget to mention the author Roberto Fasulo.

Netus G20
Netus G20 top side
Netus G20 bottom side
Netus G20 detail 1
Netus G20 detail 2

FOX Board G20
FOX Board G20 top side
FOX Board G20 bottom side