Once the Live USB drive has been successfully prepared by UNetbootin, the following files have to be modified in order to send the console output over the serial port: I’m using a Prolific PL-2303 based interface and minicom on Linux or Serial when I’m on my Mac. To access the APU’s serial port, a RS-232 DB9 null-modem to USB interface is required and some software to connect to it.

YMMW, but if you get weird bootloader errors, try formatting/creating the bootable drive on Windows. While UNetbootin is available on Linux and MacOS too, only the Windows version gave me consistent results after formatting the USB drive to FAT32 file format. The APU series doesn’t have a video port, that’s why the Ubuntu Server 16.04 image requires some modifications in order to use the serial port for console output instead. Since the Ubuntu image is using a read-only CD-ROM filesystem, I’m using UNetbootin to create a bootable Live USB drive which lets me modify files.

However, the Ubuntu Server x86-64 version runs on these boards very well too which can turn them into a lightweight, portable Plex Media Server for instance. Most people use PC Engines APU series (APU1D4, APU2C4) system boards for pfSense firewalls ( pfSense is awesome!).

Plex media server ubuntu 16.04 setup