I purchased a BeagleBone Black Rev C with the intention of turning it into a portable Quake 3 server. I also picked up a simple case and a power supply from adafruit who had everything I wanted in stock. Plus the entire process was seamless, this is how internet stores should operate. They also have an excellent blog and a library of training materials.

I received my little system in a couple days and immediately began turning the BeagleBone into a network attached device that I could interact with via SSH. These are the steps I took to set it up from my MacBook:

  1. Plug in the BeagleBone via USB
  2. Open /Volumes/boot/START.htm in a browser
  3. Install the Network and Serial drivers listed in the Mac OS X section of the table.
  4. Restart to get the USB network to work. May not be necessary, but it was for me.
  5. SSH into the system
    ssh root@192.168.7.2
  6. Enable the onboard ethernet port by editing /etc/network/interfaces and uncommenting the line
    iface eth0 inet dhcp
  7. Add a password to root
    passwd
  8. Add a user account
    adduser < username >
  9. Disable root connections via SSH by editing /etc/ssh/sshd_config and changing this line to read
    PermitRootLogin no
  10. Restart SSH
    service ssh restart
  11. Exit and test root and user connection
    exit
    ssh root@192.168.7.2 (should fail)
    ssh < username >@192.168.7.2 (should work)
    exit
  12. Disconnect the BeagleBone from your computer and connect it to your switch via ethernet cable, also plug in with a power supply
  13. Insure the above configuration is valid
    ssh < username >@< dynamic IP > (I found the dynamic IP on my router's status page)
  14. su -
  15. apt-get update
  16. apt-get upgrade

The BeagleBone is now ready to become my little Quake server to go.