To upgrade or not

I did some checking and realized I had to go back to 8.04 (Hardy Heron I think) due to latency issues when I set this up a couple years ago.

I'm not sure I can update to 2.6 with this OS distro, (at lest not online).

Is there another link that shares how or if I update to 2.6 while using 8.04?

This has been an informative thread for me, thanks to all.

Hi

Unfortunately there was a conscious decision not to support Hardy with 2.6

This sounds fairly reasonable, it is well out of LTS and some libraries now required are not available in it.

Unfortunately, whilst few people actually like Ubuntu 8.04, the rtai kernel with the distro was the last Uni-Processor rtai kernel to be produced.
This means it was the last kernel that runs well on a lot of older single processor computers.

This snip from the developers list suggests the only lib which cannot be satisfied through backports or whatever, is one used for the XHC pendant.

> Ubuntu Hardy (RTAI and simulation) is not currently supported because of
> a build dependency of the new xhc-hb04 driver. If there is user desire
> for 2.6 on Hardy we can disable that driver on Hardy (while still
> shipping that driver on the newer platforms).
>

Off the top of my head I think that may be libusb / libusb-dev, but I can't be sure until I get on a linux box.
This lib should now be available from launchpad.

So with the right knowledge you could probably build 2.6 on Hardy, but it not something that is going to be supported.

The key question is name the feature in 2.6 you require.
If you cannot, you are just version number chasing and 2.5 will continue to serve you well

regards

This may not be a fair question but it would be helpful to know.

If a person wanted to build there own PC for LCNC only, and wanted to be able to upgrade for some years to come, what HD, mother board, graphics, and what have you, would be recommended?

And if building your own wasn't a reality, what should you look for in "out of the box" options for a really good, stable, forward looking machine?

I have a limitation to add, it has to support LPT boards, if it didn't I would have to change my drive control and likely my motors. $$$$$

Yes, they are the old I/O LPT cards with serial port cables running to the breakout boards.

It may be that with each passing day this this old system on this machine becomes a bigger and more useless relic.

I played around with the Motherboard setting extensively to no avail. I could not get the Servo jitter back down. I finally went back to Ubuntu 10.04 (I had saved a hard drive of the previous installation) THEN upgraded LinuxCNC from 2.5 to 2.6.5.

With absolutely NO changes to the motherboard settings between these 2, I am VERY pleased with the results:

With Debian: Servo Jitter = 1924002 (+)

With Ubuntu: Servo Jitter = 10240

This is a great milestone! I have three axes working as expected now, so onward!

Now I can get back to completing this setup that I have been working on for quite a while - maybe even be able to MAKE something soon!!

Paul

pws wrote:

PCW wrote:

Before going back to a 10.04 installation you might check that _ALL_ power management options are disabled in the BIOs:

wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Troubl...ck_dmesg_for_details

Your huge latencies suggest that something like power management is enabled.

What Motherboard is this? (someone else may have experience with the same hardware)

ASUS F2A85V Pro FM2
AMD A10-5800K
GSkill 16GB
WD Velociraptor 300G
Mesa 6i25

No changes to BIOS were made since original build. I will check again to verify the Power Management settings.

Thanks