February 18, 2017

C.H.I.P. headless set up on Windows 10

CHIP Spec

CHIP is $9 computer with following specs:



  • 1GHz R8M/R8 ("A13 compatible, Cortex-A8 is ARMv7-A,  CPU single core")
  • 512MB RAM
  • Built-in 4GB storage, OS pre-installed.
  • 5V DC, >500mA
  • Built-in WIFI (B/G/N), Bluetooth 4.0
  • Micro USB on the go port, full USB port
  • 45 GPIO
  • Suppports: 1-wire, I2C, and PWM output

Connect to Windows 10 via USB

To connect to monitor, a separate adapter is required and no Ethernet port.  Follow below steps to set up headless.
  1. Connect micro-USB to Windows 10 PC
  2. Open device manager.  You'll find "CDC Composite Gadget" with exclamation point, meaning no driver is installed.  If you don't see this, that's good.  If you see this go to next step.
  3. Right mouse click on "CDC Composite Gadget"
  4. Properties -> Update driver -> browse -> Let me pick -> ports -> Microsoft -> USB Serial device.

Connect to CHIP via Serial

You'll now see new COM port.  Follow this to connect to CHIP via serial port you just setup:
  1. In putty, click on "Session" in left panel under Category.   select "Serial" for connection type, and in Serial line field, type in the COM port that was set up in previous step.  E.g. "COM4", and speed=9600. 
  2. Click on "Open" button.
  3. ID/PW= chip/chip or, root/chip

Set up WIFI

  1. login as root
  2. type "nmtui"
  3. Choose "Activate a connection"
  4. Choose wifi, enter password
  5. reboot
To set static IP, run nmtui again and edit the connection.

No GUI

CHIP's pre-installed OS has GUI running.  You can VNC to it, or disable the GUI and just use SSH or serial:
  • Disable GUI: systemctl set-default multi-user.target
  • Enable GUI: systemctl set-default graphical.target

Setting Locale, Timezone

  1. apt-get update
  2. apt-get install locales
  3. locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
  4. dpkg-reconfigure locales
  5. dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Slow WIFI

  1. sudo apt-get install wireless-tools
  2. iwconfig wlan0 power off
Automate this:
  1. sudo wget -O/etc/network/if-up.d/wlan_pwr http://fordsfords.github.io/wlan_pwr/wlan_pwr
  2. sudo chmod +x /etc/network/if-up.d/wlan_pwr
  3. sudo reboot

Install Java

Download ARM version from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads

Install Webmin

  1. sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
  2. Add these two lines:
    deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib
    deb http://webmin.mirror.somersettechsolutions.co.uk/repository sarge contrib
  3. wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc
  4. sudo apt-key add jcameron-key.asc
  5. sudo apt-get update
  6. sudo apt-get install webmin


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