These instructions are for Debian 13, rather than the TI SDK (which I have not tried).

OS installation

The installation process is to use a USB SD card adapter on another machine to write an image on an SD card, and then insert the card into the BeagleY-AI. I recommend using bb-imager, BeagleBoard’s imager. This downloads the image for you. I used it on macOS. Using bb-imager allows you to do some configuration before writing the image. Under Software, choose the “BeagleY-AI Debian 13 v7.3.x-k3 IoT” image (this is the one with no desktop). Note the wifi is 2.4GHz only.

OS configuration

Update your system:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Check that you have the necessary overlay for PPS input:

ls -l /boot/firmware/overlays/k3-am67a-beagley-ai-cpts-hw1tspush-gpio13.dtbo

Edit /boot/firmware/extlinux/extlinux.conf. Uncomment the fdtoverlays line in the default label microSD (default), and change it so that it looks like this:

label microSD (default)
    kernel /Image.gz
    append console=ttyS2,115200n8 root=/dev/mmcblk1p2 ro rootfstype=ext4 fsck.repair=yes rootwait net.ifnames=0
    fdtdir /
    fdt /ti/k3-am67a-beagley-ai.dtb
    fdtoverlays /overlays/k3-am67a-beagley-ai-uart-ttyama0.dtbo /overlays/k3-am67a-beagley-ai-cpts-hw1tspush-gpio13.dtbo
    #initrd /initrd.img

This uses two overlays:

  • k3-am67a-beagley-ai-uart-ttyama0 puts ttyAMA0 TX/RX on pins 8 and 10
  • k3-am67a-beagley-ai-cpts-hw1tspush-gpio13 makes pin 33 be a PPS input connected to the PHC

After this, reboot.

Verify OS setup

ls /proc/device-tree/chosen/overlays/

should show the overlays specified in fdtoverlays.

ls -l /dev/ttyAMA0

should show a link to ttyS3.