Precise 12.04 with D525MW

Hi. Hope this hasn't been covered before, I've had a look around but couldn't find info on this problem.

I've just installed 12.04 on a machine using Intel D525MW, all good.

I followed the Wiki to install the Rtai Kernel which went OK. When I boot, grub gives me the option of ..rtai-2. If I choose it, Ubuntu starts to boot, then I get a blank screen (as if there is a graphics problem).

To get around this at the moment: If I choose ...rtai-2 (recovery mode) then when faced with the options (resume, clean, grub etc.) I just choose "resume normal boot" it boots up fine...

I'm very new to Linux and don't know how to go about solving problems like this. Anyone got any suggestions?

Many thanks

Tom

Hi

Doing some searches reveals several strange problems with video, 12.04 (especially with later kernels) and the 525

If running dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg from a terminal does not sort it I would switch distros.

There is no need to use Ubuntu at all and plenty of reasons not to; bloat, slow response, wannabe windows 8 tendencies, to name but a few.

I would just install Debian Wheezy (7). I have a 525 running it with no problems and resolutions up to 1980 x 14?? on the i915 Intel driver

The 3.4.55-rtai-2 kernel packages will run quite happily on Wheezy, I have them on this machine

regards

Hi, thanks for getting back to me

I did as you suggested and managed to boot with the rtai kernel. It detects that I have two screens, laptop and something else. Once I've disabled one of them it works OK. However, I'm having trouble getting it to recognise both my mouse and touchscreen at the same time. Already starting to dislike 12.04

Is it easy enough to get linuxcnc working on Debian? I see there's a Wiki page, but there's quite a lot in it, makes me think there's lots of opportunity to go wrong

wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Debian...-Rt_Compile_LinuxCNC

I did as you suggested and managed to boot with the rtai kernel. It detects that I have two screens, laptop and something else. Once I've disabled one of them it works OK

That was one of the classic problems, no idea why or what Ubuntu did to screw it up.

Is it easy enough to get linuxcnc working on Debian? I see there's a Wiki page, but there's quite a lot in it, makes me think there's lots of opportunity to go wrong

wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Debian...-Rt_Compile_LinuxCNC

I haven't seen that one before, yes it is a bit involved and not what you want really.

When you get to the stage where you can do a RIP install from sources, using Debian is trivial but maybe not for now.

If you can sort out what drivers you need for mouse and touchscreen, you may be better sticking with 12.04 for now.
(I would have thought the point of a touchscreen was that you didn't need a mouse)

regards

If that day ever comes, I’ll look forward to it.

I didn’t manage to get 12.04 sorted in the end. All hardware works great out of the box, then I install Rtai and the touch screen stops working, along with some of the touch pad mouse functions (edge scrolling etc). Using lsusb and xinput list, the monitor is still detected the same (eGalax) and does have some function – first few touches register, then nothing. Is there a way to compare driver (module?) lists between initial install and post Rtai install?

For now I’ve gone back to 10.04 which to be fair works well, I’m using Linuxcnc 2.7 with Gmoccapy.

Is there a way to compare driver (module?) lists between initial install and post Rtai install?

lspci -k will show you which drivers are loaded for MB and cards etc

lsmod will list the kernel modules loaded

Between the 2 you should be able to narrow down what is different

If you look in /lib/modules/{kernel} you can see where the module is in the stock kernel that works and then look for it in the rtai kernel, it is probably not there
You could always try to build it from sources using module-assistant, once you identify it

regards

Thanks, this could be a tedious thread because I wont be back at my mill again for a few weeks to try it.

However, just installed precise on another desktop and compared lsmod before and after Rtai install. There are 7 module changes, one of which is "hid_generic" there before, and missing afterwards. Strong chance that could be it?

Thanks for your help.

There are 7 module changes, one of which is "hid_generic" there before, and missing afterwards. Strong chance that could be it?

Sounds like a good candidate.

Morning.

I'm back at my machine playing with Ubuntu 12. After installing the real time kernel "hid_generic" (and some other modules) are no longer loadable modules (according to modprobe command). How can I reinstall the missing module(s)? I've been searching on the web and within synaptic manager but I think the package name will be something else, not sure how to proceed.

Many thanks

Tom

Hi

This is nothing to do with Ubuntu 12.04

When you installed the new 3.4.55-rtai-2 kernel, you also installed a new set of kernel modules which will be in /lib/modules/3.4.55-rtai-2

It appears that the later kernels stopped using hid_generic, so you need to find out which of the later modules you need to load for your touchscreen
There is for instance a hid_multitouch module but don't know if that is relevant to you

I suspect however you may need to follow the steps here tzilla.is-a-geek.com/articles/egalax/

The kernel sources for the 3.4.55-rtai-2 kernel are here highlab.com/~seb/linuxcnc/rtai-for-3.4-p....55-rtai-2_3_all.deb

See if you can follow them and build the egalaxy drivers

regards