Just some feedback in making Parallella work.
I am not complaining, just returning feedback to other users can learn from it and the community can improve the user experience.
I got my Parrallella delivered, but I did not have a 5V power supply available with the correct plug.
I went to my collection of old power supplies and found one with a wrong connector. I cut the connector and took one from another power supply.
I probably shorted it because when I tested the power supply it gave no voltage.
So I went back to my electronics power supply and I have this regulator power supply beast.
I avoided this one since it has a turning knob and I don't want over-voltage by accident.
I finally powered up Parallella and I see 2 green led's and the ethernet cable led turn green.
When I scanned the network I could not find parallella.
Now here is the issue, since I have never seen a Parallella work, I have, no clue what is normal.
I unplugged the power and plugged back again, and suddenly I only have only one green blinking led.
I thought I fried the board. and gave up.
Later I tried again, and this time 2 green leds and the ethernet green.
After browsing the forum I discovered that 1 blinking green lead means not enough amperages.
I looked in disbelieve since I have this big giant power supply. Then I looked at the power supply lettering and it turns out to be 2A with a peak of 2.3A.
So I believe that when the power supply is cold it barely could provide enough amperage, when it heats up it somehow drops.
I finally solved the 5V issue by connecting it to my computer power supply. A 1200W beast!
However I still had the problem that I do not find the parallella board on my network.
Back to the forums and maybe because the SD card image was written incorrectly?
I recreated the image, got an powered usb hub and an hdmi cable. Hooked it up to my TV and connected a keyboard.
I expected to see something on my TV, the TV did react when I powered it on, but then signal loss.
I did notice the 3 green leds green but no IP address.
Apparently there are 2 images for Parallella desktop. Once that does not have hdmi active and another one that has it active.
So I downloaded the one with hdmi active tried to create the image and it turns out that Win32Disk requires a bigger card.
I noticed that the image is about 15 GB so I thought it would fit on a 16 GB but to be safe use a 32 GB.
The shop only had either 16 or 64 GB, and since I have no idea if Parallella can even support 64 GB I took the 16 GB.
At home I discovered that the image did not fit on a 16 GB.
Back to square 1, downloaded the image without hdmi support wrote it to the SD card.
Fired up Parallella, and I finally found the IP address 10.0.0.13!
Tried to connect to parallella with ssh but it fails. Ping works correctly but I can't login through ssh.
The first trial it somehow connects, but then fails. When I try again the I get a connection refused, until I power off and on again.
So I think that the image on the card is not correct, I will try again when I have found a 32 GB card and eventually can connect it to a monitor.