upgrade from ubuntu 10.04 to Jessie on multiboot?

Hello,

Thank you all for your help in setting up my system so far. Now I have a question regarding software installation. Any help would be appreciated.

I did a clean install of LinuxCNC on a fresh disk last year using Ubuntu 10.04. After that, I installed XP on a different partition so that I could run various programs for other machines in the shop without affecting linuxcnc, as I didn't want to mess up latency when going live.

The motherboard is an AMD -E350D with built in radeon processor and only one expansion slot, which is PCI. I have ordered a Mesa 5I20/7I77 combination, which takes up that one slot, so I will be using the onboard Radeon graphics and driver.

Now I'm finally working on the hardware and would like the best system - most reliable, most features, best response, fewest bugs - and figured I would upgrade to Debian Jesse and LinuxCNC 2.7.

Is that a good decision (or should I just run updates to linuxcnc on lucid)? If it's the right decision, could someone point me to the procedure for a complete new install over just one partition?

Also, I have read in another thread that upgrading to 2.7 on Jesse can increase latency when using the built-in graphics card. Is this (still) an issue?

Thank you for any direction or replies.

if you would prefer to stay with ubuntu, i have a set of instructions posted at the end of ubuntu 14.04.1 linuxcnc help. let me know if this is something that will work for you

Thank you for your help.

I had looked at your instructions and was tempted before I posted.

The reason I asked the question here is because of informational pages like linuxcnc.org/docs/2.7/html/getting-start..._updates_to_linuxcnc that say these Ubuntu releases on AMD64 machines are used mainly for simulation, not for machine control.

My motherboard is AMD64. It seems like Debian Wheezy and Jessie are recommended for machine control on this platform. I burned a DVD and am planning on trying to do a live install of LinuxCNC/Wheezy over my Lucid LinuxCnc install today.

It's true I don't want to learn yet another OS (or at least flavor). But if necessary, I'll deal with it.

If you feel that an Ubuntu release would work as well for machine control on AMD64, please let me know!

The install on my machine is also AMD64, but to be honest there are still a lot of other things to do to make it work. If you go to my other post, Ubuntu 14.0401 linuxcnc help, there is a post by tjmarch in were he provides a way to accomplish this very easily. Albeit you will need to download the 32bit version of ubuntu which will work on your machine. Its going to be your best route other than the live cd's. pay attention because latter in the posts someone gives recommendation as to which kernel to select. Most of it is automated so, it takes the work out. good luck

you will see that at first there was some argument on whether or not it will work as a machine controller then near the end it is clarified that using the xenomai kernel results in simulation mode only. the other kernels should work though. As far as ubuntu 14.04 64bit, it will work eventually. im still working on it. before last month I didnt know linux existed, so im learning as i go but the end goal is to get this working on 64 bit ubuntu with no bugs.

Thanks.

I upgraded the Ubuntu 10.04 LinuxCnc installation today to Wheezy using the live install. It seems to be working fine, though I won't have my Mesa boards for a while to really test it.

I noticed afterwards that it had installed the 32 bit kernel (686). You mentioned in your post above that you are working on Ubuntu 14 for 64 bit.

Is there a performance difference between 32 bit and 64 bit kernels with LinuxCnc? I'm planning on running a 5-axis machine (actually six plus one, eventually) on this installation, so there will be large files of short moves, as well as mathematical macros.

I can probably wait for a while and would reinstall your version if it would make a performance difference.

Thanks again.

EDIT: I see from other threads that it seems the only downside of using a 32 bit kernel is lack of access to more than 4GB of memory. Since this partition will be dedicated to running a machine via linuxcnc, that won't be a problem.

If there are other advantages to 64 bit, please let me know. Thanks.

According to the website provided by tjmarch in the ubuntu 14.04.1 linuxcnc help topic, the kernel should be able to access 64gb.
quote from website provided,
"With PAE, IA-32 architecture is augmented with additional address lines used to select the additional memory, so physical address size increases from 32 bits to 36 bits. This increases the physical memory addressable by the system from 4 GB to 64 GB. The 32-bit size of the virtual address is not changed, so regular application software continues to use instructions with 32-bit addresses and (in a flat memory model) is limited to 4 gigabytes of virtual address space. Operating systems supporting this mode use page tables to map the regular 4 GB address space into the physical memory, which, depending on the operating system, may be as big as 64 GB. The mapping is typically applied separately for each process, so that the extra memory is useful even though no single regular application can access it all simultaneously."
Im just being stubborn to try and get the functionality out of the 64bit. Plus I have a band and was hoping to use it for audio recording as well. So in that aspect, it would be better for me, personally, to use the 64bit.

If you read near the end of ubuntu 14.04 help , tjmarch provides a script that works very well for 64 bit ubuntu and linux mint. I cant recommend it whether its better or not but its seems to work ok on a laptop, so shoud work well on other platforms? i do sugest changing to the gnome shell if you choose ubuntu though. although my kids prefer unity ( due to the simularitys to tablet format..)

Thanks.

Right now I am working on the electrics of the machine. I don't know when the mesa boards will arrive. If it takes a while, then the 64 bit version should be more mature by then.

For now, I am getting, without the mesa boards:

servo thread 1ms 11726
base thread 25us 13376 (u for micro)

Those numbers are the result of taxing the system with graphics and network access in browser tabs for eight hours, which I think is very good. I'd hate to upset that, so I plan to wait until some reports come in on the 64 bit in live systems.

I realize that I am running servos, and maybe I don't need such low latency. But the lower the better I think. Also, once I get four axes running in servo, I may end up using steppers in other parts of the system.

I very much appreciate the heads up. I'll try to stay on top of any forum posts relevant to the 64 bit releases of 2.7 and above.

Agaian, i cant report for the improvement of a 64 bit system but if u have time and are not doing anything else, i suggest following the script provided by tjmarch in the topic i told you about. try the mint install, and let me know how it goes. also what type of computer are u running on? i may have some latency reducing tips for you.. im getting simular latency out of a laptop, so the methods may get you much better results.