With Cosino you can create anything from scratch without loosing time to setup and running the base system. By using Debian OS you have 30000+ applications ready to use by simply downloading them from Debian’s repositories!

This section provides you with a brief introduction to Cosino concepts and reference material to help you understand how Cosino Project’s boards work, also you can find useful papers regarding several system settings under both Debian and/or OpenWRT OSes.

Getting a running system

Once you have your new Cosino board in front of you just choose an extension and plug Cosino on top of it!

Cosino Mega 2560
Cosino Mega 2560 based boards

Cosino boards based on Mega 2560 extension can be powered up by using the serial console USB cable or by using a power supply (strongly suggested for on-board WiFi versions and if you have external peripheral connected: i.e. RFID reader) and yo need a microSD with a Debian OS pre-installed in order to boot the system. You have two options:

Managing Debian OS

Managing Debian system is quite simple, if you are an experienced Debian user you may skip this paragraph, otherwise let me suggest to take a look at this simple tutorial about how to running Debian on your Cosino, for a quick-start, or see the Debian Documentation for the full documentation.

Using an host computer (aka a normal PC)

Your Cosino board can compile your code for you but, in some circumstances, you may wish using an host computer to do this job… for example if you need recompiling the Cosino’s kernel code or other huge project using an host computer is quite mandatory!

Again, if you wish building your own Debian OS into a new microSD you need an external host too, since your Cosino needs a pre-build root filesystem to run.

All command line examples in the Cosino’s Documentation pages are based on Ubuntu 13.04 (or newer) so you should use a dedicated computer for this task or just build a Virtual machine running your Ubuntu system (for instance you can take alook at the Virtualbox or VmWare projects for further info).

Find & navigate

You can use the form below to search keywords into the site (then you can use the lens icon in the upper left corner), also you can navigate through documentation pages by using the items into the left sidebar.


If you are looking for code we suggest to you to take a look at our GitHub page.

Continue Learning

Running a lightweight HTTP web server with PHP

Running a lightweight HTTP web server with PHP

Debian OS have several web servers ready to install (Apache as the main reference) but if you wish a low memory footprint and an easy configuration task the best choice is definitely lighttpd! On Cosino, with a Debian OS pre installed, adding lighttpd with PHP support is quite an easy task. To install the WEB…

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Accessing the serial console

Accessing the serial console

Here you can find some suggestions about how to get access to the Cosino’s serial console from an external host computer. Please note that to get access to the serial console you need a type-B miscro USB cable connected to the proper serial console port on your Cosino’s extension. GNU/Linux host On my Ubuntu 13.04…

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Booting OpenWRT from NAND

Booting OpenWRT from NAND

OpenWRT is a powerful embedded distribution which fits well into Cosino’s on board NAND. Putting OpenWRT into your Cosino based board is quite simple but you need a microSD with a Debian OS installed in order to do it. So plug in the microSD and power up your Cosino. Now we need to download Cosino’s…

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The MODBUS utils

The MODBUS utils

Modbus is a serial communications protocol originally published by Modicon (now Schneider Electric) in 1979 for use with its programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Simple and robust, it has since become a de facto standard communication protocol, and it is now a commonly available means of connecting industrial electronic devices. The main reasons for the use…

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