Re: the sticky: "5i25 firmware XML files for pncconf" (missing newer files)

Bonus Q. Where is PnCConf looking for firmwares?
A. /lib/firmware/hm2/5i25/  as reported elsewhere, HOWEVER, in PnCConf, you MUST select the "Board Name" on the Mesa Card N page to be "5i25" NOT "5i25-Internal Data" which some examples show.  It's obvious afterward that looking for firmware in the card's "internal" space isn't going to find any firmware's "external" to the card...

Firstly, I apologize that the links are not hidden; the combination of my firefox browser and the forum editor don't get on. I tried to fix it a couple of times, but while the links were hidden, other wonkiness followed, so I've reverted to the earliest, crude form.

I've bitten the bullet and gone over to the Mesa 6i25 side (the functional PCIe-based equivalent to the very popular PCI-based 5i25). (I'm in a maelstrom of whirlwinds of varying sizes as a result, but that's for another post.)

One of the things I've discovered, in trying to separate what I know from what I don't know from what I only think I know, is that the stickied post of the title could use an update.

This link
www.forum.linuxcnc.org/39-pncconf/21670-...ml-files-for-pncconf
refers to files (I take it) that PnCConf will need to refer to, which are missing from /lib/firmware/hm2/, but which are necessary for a 5i25 (and the verisimilar 6i25).

The sticky also refers to Bogie6040's 5i25UPDATE.zip download, this link:
www.linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/forum...nstall-utility#32197
containing (only) SOME of the available candidate firmwares: 7 by my count (and for my particular interests, neither of the two likely to support my existing "Chinese BOB/BreakOutBoard"), and a script for copying them to the correct location (requiring root permissions).

Elsewhere, this link being one place):
forum.linuxcnc.org/39-pncconf/46295-cant-get-servo-motors-to-move-during-configuration#246547
PCW has posted a link to a "5i25.zip" available from one of the Mesa vendors containing some 34 firmwares for the 5i25, which also happens to include my two targets.

Following Bogie's approach, I extracted the .xml files from the more complete .zip and copied them into the same
/lib/firmware/hm2/5i25/
folder that the script had created, and extracted the .pin files and copied them into the same \
/usr/share/doc/hostmot-firmware-5i25/
folder the same script had also created.

Sadly, while the file 5ABOBx2.pin is present in the later .zip, the file 5ABOBx2.xml is not, reducing my candidate pool to 1 only.



[UPDATE: I have since fired up PnCConf, and began following tommylight's excellent hand-holder on setting up a Mesa 5i25 (and relatives) to use a parport/BOB/G540 and noticed very shortly that the dmmbob1x2, whose .xml I had copied to
/lib/firmware/hm2/5i25/
is not listed among those available by the pncconf program. I proceeded with the G540x2 firmware option as a way to see if I could at least make it through to a complete configuration.
Italics added by editor for its own reasons...]

pncconf has adapted a lot over the years. Mesa cards used to load the firmware at startup.
Linuxcnc supplied 'official' firmware from a different repository.
When the 5i25 came out, it didn't read the firmware at start up but had it on board.
To make things easier for me, I just added had pncconf look in the same place for new firmware (/lib/firmware/hm2/) and we had users place XML files in the same folder, even though the card doesn't need them.
That caused user problems, so eventually I added internal firmware.

XML files are also a pain because it seems the format changed over the years.

often people just use a similar available firmware and edit the names.

Now using the PIN file as a reference or using the discovery option might work for you.
I described this technique in your other post.