future of linuxcnc

Ubuntu precise 12.04 end of life, Debian wheezy end of life,
What OS to use with linuxcnc to be up to date?

Marius

Currently there isn't a working rtai kernel for anything newer that is packaged in linuxcnc.. If you are using hardware (mesa, pico, such) you can use rt_preempt which is currently part of the kernel.org.

There is currently a stretch iso using rt_preempt here
www.linuxcnc.org/testing-stretch-rtpreempt/

it may or may not have good enough latency for software step generation. YMMV

sam

LinuxCNC will run on current Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint releases but requires building from source.

Jeff Epler has made test ISO images of Debian Stretch/ Preempt-RT available here:

www.linuxcnc.org/testing-stretch-rtpreempt/

( the r10 version has the "meltdown" patches incorporated)

More testers of the Stretch release would be a good thing

thks for your update, we will start testing the stretch kernel

There is nothing wrong with running Debian Wheezy if your hardware is supported by it.

If your computer can achieve acceptable latency with the Preempt-RT kernels, you can run Debian Stretch with the linux-image-rt-686-pae kernel package. Then install a per-built version of Linuxcnc from buildbot.
deb linuxcnc.org/ stretch base 2.7-uspace

first attempt looks promising, a Mesa board 5i25 with 7i77 runs smooth on the OS strech,
main reason to look for the newer Debian version, are challanges with hardware on Debian Wheezy , like touch screen etc

trying to get mesa 5i24 flashed to work with 7i47s to control stepper drivers with encoder feedback.
as mesaflash generates a root error on Debian strech, have flashed the 5i24 card on debian wheesy machine,
have used hostmot2/5i24_16_svst1_4_7i47s.bit on debian wheesy machine no problem, on Debian strech got errors with Pncconfig Wizard, 5i24 is shown, but obvious not regognized,

There was a bug in mesaflash on 64 bit systems, so you should update your copy of mesaflash
The bug can corrupt flash on the card so you may need to select the alternate flash chip on the 5I24
if this has happened.

mesaflash is already the newest version (3.3.0~pre0+dfsg-0)
still error:BootSector is invalid

Is the boot sector actually invalid? (if so the 5I24 card will not start at powerup and the red lights will remain on)

There may be other issues with stretch/mesaflash so its probably best to flash the card on a known working
system until this get figured out