Nightmare with 10.04

[welderfabrod]

Been trying to install ubuntu 10.04 for 3 days on different pc's, only one ran straight away from the live CD and this was an old 800Mhz Packard Bell that I've had for years and I only tried it on that because I got no joy with the other two but it does control my Denford Orac Lathe with no problems at all. The other two are,nt new ones a Compaq Presario 2.17Mhz with a ATI 9600 graphics card the other is a Philips Dual Core but both higher specs than the Packard.

On the Compaq when trying to boot from the live CD all I got at first was just screens full of text ending with something like Ubuntu@Ubuntu a bit like the old Dos prompt. Looked at the Bios and it was set to boot from CD. Tried a few more times same result. Then I downloaded the live CD for 10.04.1 and tried that, that booted ok. Put 10.04 back in and that booted ok as well!!!!!
So now I,m thinking I,ve got a problem with my CD rewriter (only had a rewriter on this machine). So tried 10.04 again and it would'nt load again. I had a spare CD Rom so I put that in and changed the boot set up to reflect this. Hey presto 10.04 booted first time. did'nt continue with install as it was getting late. Next day tried to boot from the CD in the Rom drive again gues what, just screens of text again, tried a couple more times same result. I had a E-Machines pc with a blown mother board, probably about 6 years old but I knew both CD drives in it were ok so put these drives in the Compaq and both drives booted 10.04 every time I tried, so we're winning, finished the install this time. Got everthing connected back to the mill, ran a latancey test. Blimey 345,700ish and that was without doing anything. As I had dual booted this with 8.04 EMC2 2.3.0 which was on there already and I had no problems with it I switched back to that and did a latancey test 6500 was the result. Gave up on 10.04 on that PC and left it with 8.04.

I then thought I,d try it on the Dual Core as this is the newest PC I have in my workshop (sorry shed) but it was'nt in use at all. However it did have a CD drive that I'd sometimes have to close 2 or 3 times before it would stay in, which really pissed me off hence its home under the bench, so I thought I'd try the the old rewriter out of the Compaq. No luck screens full of text again, so brought a new sata CD installed that but left the old rewriter in. 10.04 booted from the sata drive ok, out of curiosity I tried it in the old rewriter again and it booted ok this time I did'nt complete the install just yet but repeated trying to boot from the old drive to see if it would fail again and it did,nt so completed the install from the old rewriter. Have,nt done a latency test on the Dual core yet.
I now don't think theres anything wrong with my PC's but I do think there's something wrong with the EMC2 version of 10.04 which appears to make it very touchy about what PC,s and graphics cards it likes, so for me I'm going to leave it alone for now and stick with 8.04 and if the isues with 10.04 don,t get resloved switch to another controller if I have to, shame really because I like EMC2. I don,t use Linux apart from my cnc so I simply don't have the knowledge or time to solve these issues, and as yet have never had to think about or purchase a PC for previous versions of EMC2 its run OK on all machines I,ve put it on so far as they've just been my old PC's when I've upgraded.

Rod

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[llamatrails]

I had trouble loading from the 10.04 live cd, and finally gave up on the live cd.

No, I don't remember exactly what was wrong, but I've been using Linux for quite a while, a RHCE, UNIX since 1982, and the effort to fix it wasn't worth the time already spent. IIRC, it seemed like the live cd is a stripped down version of the distro install cd, and too much was missing for my system to run correctly.

Loaded from the regular Ubuntu distro and then ran the linuxcnc.org script to install on a already loaded 10.04 system. That worked just fine.

[scudzuki]

I booted from the live CD on a laptop and a desktop then installed to the desktop without any issues, smooth as silk.

Joe

[llamatrails]

I booted from the live CD on a laptop and a desktop then installed to the desktop without any issues, smooth as silk.

Joe

No doubt, and it all seems to be hardware dependent. There have been plenty of load issues, here on cnczone and other emc2 forums. For some, it works great, and others it doesn't.

My system is an Intel D945GCLF2 Atom mini-ITX, surely not an old system and not the latest either, but it didn't load cleanly from the 10.04 live cd. It loaded from the 8.04 live cd without a hitch.

My point is just that if it doesn't, load the stock Ubuntu distro, and then use the linuxcnc.org script to install on a already loaded 10.04 system. That worked better for me.

[CaptainVee]

Now that I read it again, I seem to recall having similar problems at some point but was able to install in the end, nor running my mill way better than before.

[Lexx0001]

I had some installation problems as well. It would boot to the desktop, but when installing, it would get partially thru and then stop and show a message about unexpected hardware problems, then stop. I tried burning two more CD-R's even though the MD5sum matched. I loaded it onto a laptop with no problems, and gave it one more try on the desktop, and it took. Runs fine now, but the strange thing is that my wireless network is suddenly hit or miss on the desktop. Sometimes it comes up, sometimes it isn't that easy. Even then the system will disconnect itself for no apparent reason. On the laptop, wireless came up surprisingly well, but not wired. That just blows me away because networking was a Ubuntu strength.

So, yeah I had problems, but overcame them (or will), and I think EMC runs sweet. No problems there.

[welderfabrod]

Sorry guys have'nt looked at me e-mails for a few days been a bit busy. I now have 10.04 on all 3 PC's, not sure wether the effort was worth it though. But, when I do stepconfig wizard it will not create a desktop shortcut, but comes up with a paper icon and say,s something like not a trusted program and refuses to start EMC2, but I can start it through the Applications menu OK. Again its the same on all three PC's. As I said apart from my CNC I don't use linux so this all seems a little unstable for me when using machine tools. However I have'nt tried to run EMC2 on any of them yet. At least I now know its not just me.

Rod

[GaryCorlew]

Right click on the icon, go to properties, then I think its the second tab you need to check a box down near the bottom, I dont remember what its called, but it will probably make sense once you see it. Then go back out and you should be able to double click it and it should run

[welderfabrod]

Thanks Gary I'll give it a try.

Rod

[chester88]

look for 'permissions' and check 'allow execution'.
This has been fixed in the latest bug fix. If you connect your box to the net it should ask about updating.

[sodickappsguy]

on a side note. has anyone installed the Wubi dual boot and added Linuxcnc? I was wondering if it would be stable as a dual boot.

[welderfabrod]

Hi guys still having problems here with 10.04. My old PC finally died although I had 10.04 on it I stuck with using EMC 2.3.0 in Ubuntu 8. but I have now set up the Compaq Presarrio with 10.04 and EMC 2.4.3 but when i ran the latancy test it came up with that silly figure of about 80000 again, but stepcongig will not allow me to put anything higher than 50000 in anyway. So I get the run time error when I start EMC. I even edited the ini file and put in the 80000 but still get the error on starting EMC. So I decided to dual boot and go back to 2.3.0.
Running the latency test again in 2.3.0 I get a figure of only 7800 and it runs fine. So how come there is such a wide difference in the latency of the two versions on the same PC.

Oh yea I got the desktop icon working ok thank guys, should have known that.

Thanks Rod

[gmfoster]

Well on my rather new motherboard the live CD would never install however loading an old and updating finally worked. I then got the realtime kernel and it boots but then EMC won't run at all. Just dies during the load process. And many other programs that worked well are now very poor under the real time kernel. Video is jerky again along with some cad issues...

Garry

[welderfabrod]

Ya the trouble for me is Gary I'm not Ubuntu literate so I really struggle to try to solve issues like this. I don't know wether its a Ubuntu problem an EMC or PC problem. At this moment I'm struggling to see why there is such a vast difference in the latancey tests on the same PC. I have thought about droping EMC2 for Mach3 but I like EMC2 and I have got used to it over the last few years and don't understand why since going to Ubuntu 10.04 these problems have arisen, and even less why answers are not forthcoming. This does'nt bode well for EMC2 unless your into and capable of delving into the dark and mysterious depths of the software which really counts me out. I did try the trial Mach3 but found its gui cluttered and far to colourful for my liking but I suppose you could get used to this, and have heard that it has its own problems. Just hope somebody out there can help in some way.

Rod

[chester88]

The EMC crew tries to supply a realtime kernal that is low latency and stable on as many computers as possible.
That comes with testing. Its impossible to test on all combinations.
In your case the Ubuntu 8.04 / realtime kernal option worked well, 10.04 not so well.
Have you tried the EMC mailist? For such technical problems that is the best resource.
Most of the technical developers choose not to read this forum or the EMC forum - they prefer the maillist.

Chris M

[welderfabrod]

Chester I'll try the mailing list, did'nt meen to sound ungrateful, we are getting EMC free and some people are obviously spending thier time to give us it. But with 8.04 I seemed to have few problems with any PC I put it on and even high latency figures for the most part seemed to work after a bit of tweeking. But with 10.04 I now have three PC's that cough up high latancey figures and would not install from the CD without a struggle and a lot of time.
These are all AMD or Intel based and of more recent times than the old 800Mhz. Packard Bell that just bit the dust from, I think, pure exhaustion, and ran 8.04 & 10.04 without a problem. Perhaps I wrongly thought that 10.04 would be more suited to more modern PC,s.

I suppose the question now becomes how many PC's do I need to obtain before I'm lucky enough to find one that works. And the fact is I am no longer cutting metal which is for me what this is all about, I'm not a PC or software guru I just need a control programme that works without to much grief free or paid for. I've used EMC in the past not because its free, although this does help, but because I liked it and was comfortable with it, and it worked. The other important thing with any product is would I now recommend to others as did before and sadly at this point I would have to say no.

Jesus I seem to be doing nothing but gripeing here whats gone wrong!!!!!!!!

Rod

[gmfoster]

Chester I'll try the mailing list, did'nt meen to sound ungrateful, we are getting EMC free and some people are obviously spending thier time to give us it. But with 8.04 I seemed to have few problems with any PC I put it on and even high latency figures for the most part seemed to work after a bit of tweeking. But with 10.04 I now have three PC's that cough up high latancey figures and would not install from the CD without a struggle and a lot of time.
These are all AMD or Intel based and of more recent times than the old 800Mhz. Packard Bell that just bit the dust from, I think, pure exhaustion, and ran 8.04 & 10.04 without a problem. Perhaps I wrongly thought that 10.04 would be more suited to more modern PC,s.

I suppose the question now becomes how many PC's do I need to obtain before I'm lucky enough to find one that works. And the fact is I am no longer cutting metal which is for me what this is all about, I'm not a PC or software guru I just need a control programme that works without to much grief free or paid for. I've used EMC in the past not because its free, although this does help, but because I liked it and was comfortable with it, and it worked. The other important thing with any product is would I now recommend to others as did before and sadly at this point I would have to say no.

Jesus I seem to be doing nothing but gripeing here whats gone wrong!!!!!!!!

Rod

Well I have a Mach license as well as a Turbo CNC license so EMC is more a can I do this thing. If I was serious about EMC I would go and find a MB suggested by those that have experience and follow their lead. I know that at least some of the cheap Atom boards have a history of working well with Ubuntu and EMC... But I don't know which ones...

[rvt]

This sounds like a RTAI or software driver issue.
When EMC boots it does put some files in the users home directory one of these files contains the actual error of why it didn't boot. However, if EMC doesn't start it's usually a case of RTAI not starting or some hardware that wasn't found.
I remember there where some issues where EMC would bail out on a specific parallel port setting. try to go to the BIOS and change the type of parallel port and see if that changes anything, porting these two log files here for sure would help.

[melee]

Hi
I found that 10.4 was the first version that would allow me to run EMC in simulation on my house computer ( an Intel Quad core processor ) where 8.04 had just refused to load.

However I have both my workshop computers (Pentium4 2.4 and 2.8MHz) running Ubuntu 8.04, and they are very stable with low latency readings.

I have compiled version 2.4.3 of EMC on these computers and use 'run in place' settings.
This works perfectly and is what I would advise for older computers.
EMC Documentation Wiki: Installing EMC2
has the details of how to do it, step by step.

If a new version of EMC comes out with bug fixes or features you want, just repeat the process with the new version.

After all it is the latest version of EMC, not Ubuntu that adds features to CNC
and unless your computer will not run 8.04, I would leave 10.04 alone.

Just my thoughts - cheers

[welderfabrod]

Thanks guys had another go at this yesterday. But have'nt posted to the mailing list yet.

rvt what files am I looking for, the only files I can find in my home directory in the EMC2 folder are config folders and the stepconfig file ?

I did try your suggestion about changing the parallel port in bios but had the same result.

I had a look at dmesg but most of it is gobble de gooke to me but I was going to try to post it here but can't find how to copy it to a usb stick as I'm not online in my workshop.

Melee thanks for chipping in. The two PC's I'm trying to run 10.04 on are not cutting edge but there not that bad. One has a AMD Athlon 2.17Ghz cpu 1gig ram with ATI Radeon 9200 with 128MB ram graphics card. The other has a Pentium DualCore D 945 cpu 2Gbytes ram and GeForce 9400 with 1Gig ram graphics card.Which is the one I would put Mach3 on if I went that route. I have downloaded it and have been playing around on my indoor PC but I still find the gui a bit cluttered and over colourful. But I'm sure its a good program and just takes a little getting used to.

Not sure what `run in place' means but I'll have a look at the Wiki and see if I can follow it. But I think your probably right about staying with 8.04 for now.

The other thing that started happening yesterday is that 10.04 sometimes failed to boot but if I powered down the PC then rebooted it would boot up ok.This happened a few times.

Thanks guys Rod.