The BeagleBoard order from DigiKey only comes with the board itself–nothing else.
To start booting any Linux distrubution, let’s start talking to the RS232 port.
RS232 Serial Port
After a trip to Fry’s Electronics, I wasn’t able to find a DB9 Null coupler or a Null cable. I couldn’t wait or spend a few bucks to order the cabling online either.
NOTE: I made several errors along the way but here’s the crystalized version. 
The cable looks like this…
PC Side has Null connections for Tx/Rx lines coming from the BeagleBoard
PC – (DB9 Female to RJ45) — (Ethernet Straight Through) — (RJ45 to DB9 Female) — BeagleBoard
PC Side – DB9 Female to RJ45
This connector has only two wires crossed. All other cabling is straight through with no more crossed linking. In this connector, the Transmit and Receive lines are crosslinked internally inside the DB9-RJ45 connector.
DB9 to RJ45 Null wiring
RJ45 Pin and Color Coded Wiring
From PCCables.com:
Pins in light-blue show the only ones needed for BeagleBoard RS232 cabling.
Pin |
Color |
1 |
Blue |
2
|
Orange
|
3
|
Black
|
4 |
Red |
5
|
Green
|
6 |
Yellow |
7 |
Brown |
8 |
White |
There’s a straight-through Ethernet cable that connects from this PC Side RJ45 back to the RJ45 BeagleBoard end of the cabling.
BeagleBoard Side – RJ45 to DB9 Connector
This is a simpler connector where all the RJ45 Pin 1…8 go directly to DB9 Pin 1…8. I called this 1to1 connector in the photo below.
RJ45 to DB9 Wiring
The final connections to the BeagleBoard header pins:
RJ45 to DB9 to BeagleBoard Pins
A close look at the actual header pins on the BeagleBoard:
Closer view of the only pins needed for console port access.
Even closer look at the header connections using the BeagleBoard Hardware Manual (page 91):
After the above connections, open your favorite terminal window, maybe TeraTerm, with the following settings:
TeraTerm or HyperTerminal Settings
| Setting | Value |
| Baud Rate | 115200 |
| Data | 8 bit |
| Parity | None |
| Stop | 1 bit |
| Flow Control | None |
With your blank terminal opened, plug in the BeagleBoard to the PC USB to power it up. In my case, I used my Canon camera USB cable (USB Mini A to USB A Male).
You’ll see the boot loader and boots to the prompt.
Initial bootup of the BeagleBoard. No OS yet.
Next, install Angstrom or Ubuntu!!!
