Fri Oct 22 07:51:28 EDT 2010

In this file I will try to clean up all of my garbled note files into one
coherent one. I'm sure I will miss something here but this list will be
fairly comprehensive of what must be done in order to run EMC2 on
a bare Debian system. I used about 5 GB (4.5 actually) on my root
partition to get EMC2 installed. That is for my total system.

Install minimal Debian.

#aptitude update && aptitude safe-upgrade

Might need this later:
#hwinfo > MySystem.txt ; less MySystem.txt

Strip it down even more.

#update-rc.d -f cups remove

#update-rc.d -f gdm remove

$echo "exec fluxbox" > ~/.xinitrc

At a console prompt use the command startx to get into X Window.

#apt-get remove network-manager

#update-rc.d -f avahi-daemon remove

#/etc/init.d/networking restart

Configure system so it will boot a different kernel:

#e2label /dev/hda1 h1p1

#e2label /dev/hda3 h1p3

#swapoff -a

#mkswap -L h1d2 /dev/hda2

#swapon

How cnc is partitioned:
$df -h

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1              14G  3.7G  9.5G  28% /
tmpfs                 253M     0  253M   0% /lib/init/rw
udev                   10M  620K  9.4M   7% /dev
tmpfs                 253M     0  253M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda3              59G  213M   56G   1% /home

#gedit /etc/fstab

# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
LABEL=h1p1      /               ext2    errors=remount-ro 0       1
LABEL=h1p3       /home           ext2    defaults        0       2
LABEL=h1p2       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/hdc        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/hdd        /media/cdrom1   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto  0       0

############################################

#gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

and change the line:

# kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro

to

# kopt=root=LABEL=h1d1 ro

#update-grub

#update-initramfs -u -k all

$sudo -i

#aptitude update && aptitude safe-upgrade
#aptitude install \
         kernel-package \
         build-essential \
         dh-make \
         module-assistant \
         libncurses5-dev \
         zlib1g-dev \
         dh-kpatches \
         fakeroot \
         autoconf \
         dctrl-tools

#touch /etc/udev/rules.d/92-rtai.rules

  /etc/udev/rules.d/92-rtai.rules

ACTION!="add|change", GOTO="rtai_end"

KERNEL=="rtf*",                 MODE="0666"
KERNEL=="rtai*",                MODE="0666"

LABEL="rtai_end"

#gedit /etc/security/limits.conf

*       hard    memlock 8192

#adduser paulcnc src

#exit

Get kernel source and install it:

$mkdir rtai

$cd rtai

$wget ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.30.5.tar.bz2

$tar xjf linux-2.6.30.5.tar.bz2 -C /usr/src

$cd /usr/src

$ln -s linux-2.6.30.5/ /usr/src/linux


Getting the RTAI source

$wget http://linuxcnc.org/experimental/lenny/rtai_3.7.1.orig.tar.gz

$tar zxf rtai_3.7.1.orig.tar.gz

Getting the Debianization patch

$wget http://linuxcnc.org/experimental/lenny/rtai_3.7.1-2.diff.gz

$cd rtai-3.7.1/

$gunzip -c ../rtai_3.7.1-2.diff.gz | patch -p1 --dry-run

$gunzip -c ../rtai_3.7.1-2.diff.gz | patch -p1

$chmod u+x debian/rules

Building the packages.

$dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc

Installing the RTAI packages.

$cd ..

#dpkg -i librtai1_3.7.1-2_i386.deb

#dpkg -i librtai-dev_3.7.1-2_i386.deb

#dpkg -i rtai-source_3.7.1-2_i386.deb

#exit

Building the kernel packages.

$cd /usr/src/linux

$make-kpkg clean

$time fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version -rtai --revision r1 --added-patches rtai --config menuconfig kernel-image kernel-headers kernel-source


Here I screwed up royally but eventually managed to get a kernel that ran.

Probably not a very good idea:
$make mrproper

Also not a very good idea:
$make allnoconfig

I didn't try it but if it works it sounds good:
$make localmodconfig

How to search for what you think you need in the kernel:

$grep -i ipipe .config

CONFIG_IPIPE=y

 $find -type f -name Makefile | xargs grep CONFIG_IPIPE

./arch/x86/kernel/Makefile:obj-$(CONFIG_IPIPE)          += ipipe.o

then use / to search in the make menuconfig menu

Close to what I picked for my kernel configuration:

General setup  --->
 	[*] Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers
 	 [*] Automatically append version information to the version strin
 	      Kernel compression mode (Bzip2)  --->
 	 [*] Support for paging of anonymous memory (swap)
  	[*] System V IPC
  	[*] POSIX Message Queues
	[*] BSD Process Accounting
	 [*] Initial RAM filesystem and RAM disk (initramfs/initrd) suppor
	 [*] Strip assembler-generated symbols during link

[*] Enable loadable module support  --->
 		 [*]   Forced module loading
		 [*]   Module unloading

 -*- Enable the block layer  --->
 		[*]   Support for large block devices and files
 		 [*]   Block layer SG support v4
	   	IO Schedulers  --->
		  		<M> Anticipatory I/O scheduler

Processor type and features  --->
      Processor family (Pentium-III/Celeron(Coppermine)/Pentium-III
    Preemption Model (Preemptible Kernel (Low-Latency Desktop))
    [*] Interrupt pipeline  < Help > Symbol: IPIPE [=y]
     [*]   Maintain code compatibility with older releases (NEW)
     [*] Local APIC support on uniprocessors
    High Memory Support    (X) off
     [*] MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) support
     [*]   x86 PAT support <-- disable if freeze up
         Timer frequency (300 HZ)  --->
          [ ] Check for low memory corruption  <-- (I can try this after things work)
          [*] Reserve low 64K of RAM on AMI/Phoenix BIOSen

Power management and ACPI options  --->
      [*] Power Management support
      		[*]   Dock

Bus options (PCI etc.)  --->
 		[*] PCI support
 		   PCI access mode (Any)  --->
 		 [*] Interrupts on hypertransport devices (NEW)
 		  [*] ISA support

Executable file formats / Emulations  --->
		[*] Kernel support for ELF binaries

[*] Networking support  --->
 		Networking options  --->
 			<M> Unix domain sockets
 			[*] TCP/IP networking
 			<*>   IP: IPsec transport mode (NEW)
 			<*>   IP: IPsec tunnel mode (NEW)
 			<*>   IP: IPsec BEET mode (NEW)
 			[*]   Large Receive Offload (ipv4/tcp) (NEW)
 			<*>   INET: socket monitoring interface (NEW)
 			<M>   The IPv6 protocol (NEW)  --->


 	Device Drivers  --->
 			Generic Driver Options  --->
 				[*] Select only drivers that don't need compile-time external fir
 					-*- Userspace firmware loading support

 	-*- Plug and Play support  --->


 <M> Parallel port support  --->
		 <M>   PC-style hardware
		 [*]   IEEE 1284 transfer modes


 		 [*] Block devices  --->
 		 	<M>   Normal floppy disk support
 		 	<M>   Loopback device support
  			<M>   Network block device support

  	{change this!}
<M> ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support  --->
			<M>   generic ATA/ATAPI disk support (NEW)
			 [*]     ATA disk support (NEW)
			 <M>   Include IDE/ATAPI CDROM support
			 [*]   IDE ACPI support
			 <M>   generic/default IDE chipset support
			 <M>   Generic PCI IDE Chipset Support
			 <M>   Intel PIIX/ICH chipsets support
	{go with this:}
	{ [*] Serial ATA (prod) and Parallel ATA (experimental) drivers  -- }


    SCSI device support  --->
		<M> SCSI device support
		[*] legacy /proc/scsi/ support (NEW)
		<M> SCSI generic support
		[*] SCSI low-level drivers (NEW)  --->

	<M> I2O device support  --->


[*] Network device support  --->
	<M>   Dummy net driver support
	[*]   Ethernet (10 or 100Mbit)  --->
	[*]   EISA, VLB, PCI and on board controllers
	<M>   PCI NE2000 and clones support (see help) ne2k-pci
	 		say Y and read the Ethernet-HOWTO, available from
    		<http://www.tldp.org/docs.html#howto>.

Input device support  --->
		-*- Generic input layer (needed for keyboard, mouse, ...)
		[*]     Provide legacy /dev/psaux device
		 [*]   Mice  --->
		  <M>   PS/2 mouse


[*]   Miscellaneous devices  --->
 	<M>   PC Speaker support



Character devices  --->
		Serial drivers  --->
				<M> 8250/16550 and compatible serial support
		-*- Unix98 PTY support
		<M> Parallel printer support
		<M> Support for user-space parallel port device drivers
		<M> Hardware Random Number Generator Core support
		<M>   Intel HW Random Number Generator support


<M> Hardware Random Number Generator Core support
 <M>   Intel HW Random Number Generator support (NEW)

 Graphics support  --->
 		<M> /dev/agpgart (AGP Support)  --->

 		<M> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI suppor

<M> Support for frame buffer devices  --->
		<M>   ATI Rage128 display support ( note this messes up EMC2 )
				[*]     Support for backlight control

Console display driver support  --->
		-*- VGA text console

 [*] USB support  --->


<M> Real Time Clock  --->
		<M>   PC-style 'CMOS' (NEW)


 File systems  --->
 		<M> Second extended fs support
 		[*] Inotify file change notification support
 		[*]   Inotify support for userspace (NEW)

  	CD-ROM/DVD Filesystems  --->
 		<M> ISO 9660 CDROM file system support
 		[*]   Microsoft Joliet CDROM extensions


Pseudo filesystems  --->
		 -*- /proc file system support
		 [*]   /proc/kcore support
		 [*] Virtual memory file system support (former shm fs)

 Library routines  --->
 		{M} CRC32 functions


 I'm sure in all of the excitement I missed a few things but it is close.

 reboot and cross your fingers!

 #less MySystem.txt

 might help

Along with

#dmesg

and

#less /var/log/messages

Anyhow once you have a kernel that runs and does what you want it to
(took me about 6 tries) Then you can move on.

$cd /usr/src

$tar jxf rtai-source.tar.bz2

$cd /usr/src/linux

$fakeroot make-kpkg --append-to-version -rtai --added-modules rtai --config menuconfig modules_image

For EMC2 2.3 and newer, enable CONFIG_RTAI_MATH parameter.
Base system ---> Other features ---> Mathfuns support in kernel ---> enabled

Default values are OK for other parameters. Save and exit.

$sudo -i

#cd /usr/src

#dpkg -i rtai-modules-2.6.30.5-rtai_3.7.1-2+r1_i386.deb

or

#dpkg -i rtai-modules-2.6.30.5-rtai-cnc_3.7.1-2+r6_i386.deb

#cd /usr/src/linux

#cp Module.symvers Module.symvers.old

#cat /usr/realtime/modules/Module.symvers >> Module.symvers

Adjust to your kernel name:
#ln -s /usr/realtime/modules/ /lib/modules/2.6.30.5-rtai-cnc/rtai

#depmod -a

cnc:~# ls /dev/rtai
ls: cannot access /dev/rtai: No such file or directory


I found this script in the RTAI documentation and gave it a shot:

#touch restoreRT.sh
#gedit restoreRT.sh

cnc:~# cat restoreRT.sh
------------ copy from here -------------------------
#!/bin/sh

if test \! -c /dev/rtai_shm; then
        mknod -m 666 /dev/rtai_shm c 10 254
fi
for n in `seq 0 9`; do
        f=/dev/rtf$n
        if test \! -c $f; then
                mknod -m 666 $f c 150 $n
        fi
done

-------------------- to here ----------------------------

#chmod +x restoreRT.sh

#./restoreRT.sh

Marvel at incomprehensible numbers for a while:

#cd /usr/realtime/testsuite/kern/latency/; time ./run

#cd /usr/realtime/testsuite/kern/preempt/; time ./run

#cd /usr/realtime/testsuite/kern/switches/; ./run

If the above really fascinates you go through

/usr/realtime/testsuite/user

as well to compare and contrast the differences. Or not.

OK back to installing EMC2

Get everything else you need to build EMC2:

aptitude install git-core \
                   gitk \
                   git-gui \
                   autoconf \
                   tk-dev \
                   bwidget \
                   build-essential \
                   gettext \
                   python-dev \
                   libglu1-mesa-dev \
                   libxmu-dev \
                   libgtk2.0-dev \
                   libgnomeprintui2.2-dev \
                   libxaw7-dev \
                   libncurses5-dev \
                   libreadline5-dev \
                   python-tk \
                   python-imaging \
                   python-imaging-tk \
                   python-numarray \
                   pciutils \
                   libpci-dev \
                   python-glade2 \
                   python-xml \
                   bc \
				   libpth-dev \
 				   lyx \
                   texlive-extra-utils \
                   groff

Or:
aptitude install git-core gitk git-gui autoconf tk-dev bwidget build-essential gettext python-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libxmu-dev libgtk2.0-dev libgnomeprintui2.2-dev libxaw7-dev libncurses5-dev libreadline5-dev python-tk python-imaging python-imaging-tk python-numarray pciutils libpci-dev python-glade2 python-xml bc

aptitude install libpth-dev lyx texlive-extra-utils groff


Aptitude will install a bunch of other junk besides that list to satisfy
dependencies.

$mkdir ~/EMC2

$cd ~/EMC2

$ wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/emc/emc2/2.4.x/emc2_2.4.4/emc2_2.4.4.tar.gz

$ tar zxf emc2_2.4.4.tar.gz

$ cd emc2_2.4.4/src/hal/drivers

$ sed -i 's/pci_find_device/pci_get_device/g' *.c

$ cd ../..

$ ./autogen.sh

$ ./configure --enable-run-in-place

$ make clean

$ make

$ sudo make setuid

Go to the top directory of emc2-2.4.4

$ cd ..

If you're religious now might be a good time to pray.

$ . scripts/emc-environment ; scripts/emc

All of this junk took me about a week to figure out and the information was
gathered from a variety of sources but mainly is from the Lenny pages
at linuxcnc.org I just fleshed out some of the steps that got me stuck a bit
more. With this file I could probably do it in a sitting or two.

I did all of this to avoid some of the overhead in Ubuntu on my antique
machine I have dedicated to running EMC2. In the end I didn't actually
gain anything in latency. Machines are what they are. But I might not hit
those spikes as often. I don't know. I still like Debian more than Ubuntu.

Other stuff I did to this system to make it a bit more usable to me include:

#aptitude install mesa-utils xlibmesa-dri xlibmesa-gl xlibmesa-glu
#aptitude install htop
#aptitude install bootchart
#usermod -a -G video paulcnc
#gedit /etc/apt/sources.list