Upgrade time, What do I need to know first?

Its time for this to have an upgrade. What type of problems am I going to run into before I down a running machine? What is the best way to preform a machine upgrade? What is the best way to preform and OS/LinuxCNC upgrade? Should they both be done at the same time or independently to avoid problems?

Hi

You cannot really upgrade from 2.2 or whatever you have, so you need to re-install.

If you are running Ubuntu 6 then you probably have a PII or PIII, in which case just get one of the new mini ITX Atom based boards from the latency test pages
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Latency-Test
a SSD and 2GB of RAM and you linuxcnc experience will be lifted way beyond your current experience

Your home folder should contain all the code, configs etc you need, doubt you are running a RIP.

If you have any custom components, make sure you move a copy of the code into your home dir and then copy the whole thing to a USB stick.

I would use the latest Ubuntu 10.04 Linuxcnc 2.5.4 iso as the base install to get you going, you can always experiment on another partition later if you want to try the new 2.6 beta or Wheezy etc
Some of your existing configs will not work, (most common reason has the line [EMC] NML = emc.nml, that needs commenting out) but you will have a good base to start from

Best of all, whilst you are setting all that up you can continue to use your old computer

regards

It is running 2.4.0~pre and Ubuntu 6.

You recommend running on a new PC in simulator or real time first?

It is running 2.4.0~pre and Ubuntu 6.

There is an upgrade path from 2.4 to 2.5, it really depends upon whether you want to keep the computer or think that it has probably had its day.

wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UpdatingTo2.5

You may well hit problems with some of the libraries however, Ubuntu 6 has not been supported for years, so will possibly not have packages available of things like tk/tcl-8.4 which
Linuxcnc requires at a very basic level

You recommend running on a new PC in simulator or real time first?

There is no benefit to running a simulator, you want a computer that runs realtime. You can run simulations on it if you wish.

The major benefit to getting a new computer, will be the ability to use the old one until everything is configured to your liking and then putting it out to grass(skip)

regards

It looks like the first thing I need to do is decide what if any hardware needs updating. Then build up a new PC with the latest release and Ubuntu from linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/download. Then I will need to move all my config files as well as ???? What other files will need to be copied. Where are they located?

Everything should be in your home folder, under emc, unless you have done something different with your files.

If you have custom components, for a toolchanger for instance, you need the source code so that it can be re-compiled for the new kernel and realtime.

The key will just be not to do anything with the old computer until you are happy you have all you need off it.

regards

So if I copy the src directory as well as the EMC directory I should get everything?

If you have something in there you created for running emc, yes.

Remember however that nothing binary is any use, it will not run on a new kernel, headers, gcc version etc.

It is source code and configs for anything to do with emc you need, the overwhelming majority of which will be in the home dir.

Just dont be in a hurry to junk the old computer and any mistakes can be rectified simply

regards

How do I know if I have all the files I need? is there a command to pack-and-go everything?

How do I know if I have all the files I need? is there a command to pack-and-go everything?

If you have kept the standard locations for everything, it will all be in your home directory.
If not, only you or whoever did it, will know where things are.

If you have one operator, or multiple operators all using the same login, the files will all be in that logins home dir.

If you have multiple operators logging in individually with some sort of central code dir which all use, you will need all the home dirs, plus that code dir and any other shared dirs with data in

You don't need any of the emc binaries or the system configs (those in /etc) they will be replace by the new install, just your code, configs, etc.

zip -r -y -v homediremc.zip /home/* should do it for all users, but I would just copy to a USB stick as it will be easier to see what is in it

regards