Turtlebot 3: Successfully upload Alternative Ubuntu Desktop 16.04 to Joule?

When I set Turtlebot 3, I met some problems:
It is very hard to upload the Ubuntu image to Intel Joule board. I am not able to get my PC to connect to Joule board through USB-C successfully. And After that I am not able to upload Ubuntu image to Joule board successfully. It is very hard to find any useful info online regarding these issues.

After some study, I finally got it work. Here I would like to share with you some critical info.

1, Connect your PC with Intel Joule board via USB-C connector.
Before doing anything, we need to make our PC recognize and connect to Joule board. We should see “Intel DnX device” under “Universal Serial Devices” in Device manager. If not, you have a problem.
If you get it work by following Intel’s description. It is great. If not, it is normal. Here is what you need to do:
At first, follow the link https://communities.intel.com/thread/109766. User “vraoresearch” provides a solution. (Thank you, vraoresearch.)
If you still cannot get it work, here is my suggestion:
Step#1, disconnect 12VDC power supply.
Step#2, Connect PC to USB-B of the Intel Joule board, if you want to see how Joule runs through UART terminal.
Step#3, In Device manager in your PC, select “Show Hidden Devices”. And choose “Uninstall device” on all failed devices.
Step#4, Connect PC to USB-C of the Intel Joule board, at the same time press “DnX” button on the Joule board. Wait for PC to detect the DnX device and then release the button. If it does not work, try it multiple times.

2, Upgrade the BIOS image to Intel Joule board.
There is a bug in the file DNX/Flash.bat in the downloaded and unzipped Joule BIOS image. “clearRpmbFlag” needs to changed to “ClearRpmbFlag”. And its value should be defined as “TRUE”

When running Flash.bat, you should see the following output:
Clearing NvStorage…

After this, you can disconnect PC from USB-C of Joule Board, and connect the 12VDC power supply, the board should be able to boot up properly, Then you go ahead to follow the description to use a USB flash drive to upload the Ubuntu image to Joule board.

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By the way, the bug I mentioned is found in the version 1J2 of Joule BIOS image. Since Intel discontinued Joule. I believe this is the last release of Joule BIOS image.

Hi rknlhrqy,

Thank you so much for sharing your method for solving Joule’s USB-C issue when updating BIOS!
I’ll create a suggested solution link to your post from TurtleBot3 wiki FAQ page if you don’t mind.

Sincerely,
Will

Hi Will,
Not at all. It is my great pleasure.
Thank you.
–Kening

I’m sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy ㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜㅜ you are SOOOOOOO genius!!! I have suffered for a long long long!!! time. Because I couldn’t enter the BIOS even after installing the BIOS successfully… At first I thought that the connection method of my HDMI wire would be a problem, but when I tried to connect the serial port with putty, I could not enter the BIOS too!!! I searched all the questions related to the bios of the joule board to find the answer. “joule Bios not boot”, “joule board putty serial bios”, “joule hdmi not output” etc… For a very very!!! long~~~~~~ time … and I was able to solve the problem through “”""“your answers”""!!!. My BIOS was the latest version, and Flash.bat was False. After I changed this to True, I was finally!!! free from all the problems. I can sleep well now. It’s all for you. I really love you!!!

Hi kingbob,
I am thrilled by your email. Thank you very much for the nice words.
I am so glad that it did help people.

-Kening