Skip to main content

M.2

The two PCIe interfaces of Core 3588E reach M.2 sockets on the carrier board:

SocketInterfaceFor
M.2 Key MPCIe 3.0 x4NVMe SSD
M.2 Key EPCIe 2.1 x1Wi-Fi and Bluetooth card

On the Leetop A206, both sockets are on the bottom side of the carrier board: the Key M socket is J11 and takes 2280 SSDs, and the Key E socket is J10. See Hardware Information.

note

Install the SSD and the card with the carrier board powered off. A card added while the system is running is not detected until the next power-up.

Mixtile OS always starts from the eMMC, so an SSD is used for data, not as the system disk. The commands on this page are for Mixtile OS.

NVMe SSD​

Install the SSD​

  1. Disconnect the power adapter from the carrier board.
  2. Line up the notch of the SSD with the key of the M.2 Key M socket, and insert the SSD at an angle.
  3. Press the SSD down and fasten it with the screw.
  4. Connect the power adapter.

Bottom side of the Leetop A206 with an NVMe SSD in the M.2 Key M socket, marker 15, and a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth card in the M.2 Key E socket, marker 14

Figure 1. An NVMe SSD in the M.2 Key M socket (15) and a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth card in the M.2 Key E socket (14)

Check the SSD​

Core 3588E
lsblk -d -o NAME,SIZE,MODEL

Expected result: the SSD is listed as nvme0n1, with its size and model:

NAME           SIZE MODEL
mmcblk0      115.3G
mmcblk0boot0     4M
mmcblk0boot1     4M
mmcblk1       59.5G
nvme0n1      238.5G PUSKILL 256GB

mmcblk0 is the eMMC of the module, and mmcblk1 a microSD card, if one is inserted. The PCIe 3.0 link runs at up to 8 GT/s on four lanes. To see the speed the SSD is using, run sudo lspci -vv | grep LnkSta.

Format and mount the SSD​

A new SSD has no file system. The steps below create one partition over the whole SSD and mount it at /mnt/ssd.

warning

Formatting deletes everything on the SSD. Check the device name with lsblk first.

  1. Install parted and create a partition table with one partition:

    Core 3588E
    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install -y parted
    sudo parted -s /dev/nvme0n1 mklabel gpt mkpart data ext4 0% 100%

  2. Create an ext4 file system on it:

    Core 3588E
    sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/nvme0n1p1

  3. Mount it:

    Core 3588E
    sudo mkdir -p /mnt/ssd
    sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/ssd

  4. To mount it at every start, add it to /etc/fstab by its UUID:

    Core 3588E
    echo "UUID=$(sudo blkid -s UUID -o value /dev/nvme0n1p1) /mnt/ssd ext4 defaults,nofail 0 2" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

    With nofail, the system still starts if the SSD is removed.

On the desktop edition, you can also format and mount the SSD with the Disks application.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Card​

Install the card​

  1. Disconnect the power adapter from the carrier board.
  2. Insert the card into the M.2 Key E socket and fasten it with the screw.
  3. Connect the antennas to the card.
  4. Connect the power adapter.

The card is shown in the M.2 Key E socket in Figure 1.

The card needs a driver in Mixtile OS. Cards with a Realtek RTL8822CE chip work without any setup.

Check the card​

Core 3588E
nmcli device

Expected result: a wifi device is listed, for example wlP2p33s0.

Connect to a Wi-Fi network​

  1. List the networks in range:

    Core 3588E
    nmcli device wifi list

  2. Connect, replacing <SSID> and <password> with those of your network:

    Core 3588E
    sudo nmcli device wifi connect "<SSID>" password "<password>"

  3. Check that the Wi-Fi device has an IP address:

    Core 3588E
    ip addr

The connection is saved and reconnects automatically after a restart. On the desktop edition, you can also connect from the network menu at the top right of the screen.

Use Bluetooth​

The Bluetooth side of the card is managed with bluetoothctl, from the bluez package:

Core 3588E
sudo apt install -y bluez
bluetoothctl

At the [bluetooth]# prompt, run scan on to list the devices in range, pair <address> and connect <address> to use one, and exit to leave. On the desktop edition, you can also use Settings > Bluetooth.