Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

[ajayre]

Can someone please explain each of the files in: http://www.linuxcnc.org/experimental/gutsy?

A couple of them are obvious to me, but the others arn't.

Also I am assuming that EMC2 needs a kernel with RTAI, and the real time kernel available in the Ubuntu repos (apt-get install linux-rt) won't do the job. Is that correct?

I would like to use EMC2 with my existing computer that has the latest version of Ubuntu on it. Thanks for the help.

Andy

[epineh]

By all accounts you need to use 6.04 for EMC to work correctly "out of the box".

You MAY be able to build a working version of sorts, a few have tried but I have not heard of any real success.

Russell.

[Jeff Epler]

If you want an easy and user-friendly installation procedure, the Ubuntu 6.06 + EMC2 Live CD is still the best option. http://www.linuxcnc.org/content/view/21/4/lang,en/. When packages for a newer version of Ubuntu do reach the same level of friendlyness as the Live CD or the emc2-install.sh script for Ubuntu Dapper, there will be a big announcement. Whether this next version will be Gutsy Gibbon, or whether it will be the next Ubuntu LTS release, remains to be seen.

On the other hand, if you are already comfortable with running dpkg and apt-get at the commandline, the procedure goes something like this: make sure "universe" is enabled in /etc/sources.list. download the .deb files (emc2-dev, linux-source and linux-headers are optional). "dpkg -i" them all, then run 'apt-get -f install' to get the additional required packages from Ubuntu's servers. Reboot, select the "magma" kernel at the bootloader screen, and try out the system.

If you do install the packages, your feedback about whether the kernel works properly and whether emc2 runs reliably are valuable to me. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

.deb files are Ubuntu's normal software package format. .changes files are text descriptions of the packages. The .dsc and .tar.gz files are the source code for the respective .deb packages. The packages are: linux-image, linux-headers, and linux-source (linux kernel patched for realtime performance), rtai (real-time application interface, a library for realtime software), and emc2 itself.

[ajayre]

Russell - I think you mean 6.06 LTS. I know about the live CD, but I would prefer to get it working with what I already have.

Jeff - thanks for the info - I will definately give this a try and provide feedback.

Andy

[ajayre]

RTAI and the kernel installed ok, however the magma kernel has broken Ethernet. I'll keep digging to see what the deal is. However the user space latency test works ok.

Andy

[epineh]

Whoops sorry about that, it was late, that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it

[Jeff Epler]

What is your network card? is it wired or wireless?

Ubuntu normally include some extra hardware drivers (particularly for wireless cards) in the packages called linux-ubuntu-modules and linux-restricted-modules. I've built linux-ubuntu-modules but don't have any of the hardware that requires it. I haven't tried to build linux-restricted-modules yet. If you think that linux-ubuntu-modules might allow your network card to work, you can try installing the package which I have just uploaded to the experimental/gutsy directory: linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.22.6-magma_2.6.22.6-0.linuxcnc.1_i386.deb (along with related source files)

[labraticmp3]

I was just about ready to try to build a real-time kernel for Gutsy Gibbon myself when I came across this thread. I want to thank Jeff for doing the work for us.

Now for my details. I installed Gutsy on an IBM ThinkPad T43. I downloaded the .deb files and installed them including linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.22.6-magma_2.6.22.6-0.linuxcnc.1_i386.deb just in case. So far all the normal programs are working OK.

When I run EMC2 I get 2 error messages that come up:

AXIS error - RTAPI: ERROR: Unexpected realtime delay on task 1

AXIS error - Unexpected realtime delay: check dmesg for details.

EMC2 seems to run correctly after those errors appear. I ran a short gcode program in air and it worked.

Hopefully this will provide some useful feedback. If I can provide any more information let me know.

[ajayre]

I ditched the deb files and worked out how to build from scratch. Instructions are here:

http://www.britishideas.com/2007/11/...-from-scratch/

Andy