Testers Needed for New RTAI Packages

BeagleBrainz wrote:

Some areas are being smashed by storms, but on the plus side as of last week we’re basically bush fire free since they started in September.

... and despite that all, if you guys didn't have such insane immigration laws, i would be living on the bottom of the world tonight! at least your fires are just due to bad weather and climate change. we have constant brush and house fires here, but they are caused by the hoards of homeless who come here for the marijuana. had to evacuate twice last year because they kept setting the river on fire

BeagleBrainz wrote:

Andy is the man that has done the hard work on the kernel.

amen to that. andy is the man and has gotten me out of more tight places than jesus. well, actually jesus hasn't got me out of any tight places yes so i guess all the credit goes to andy!

BeagleBrainz wrote:

a mechanical hdd can have some impact, wireless is another source. One thing to remember that the MATE desktop is a bit more resource hungry, there is a chance that using a XFCE desktop could lower that figure, but I’ve been lax in update XFCE images.

actually i am using the xfce image. its just that mint has a little more overhead that debian. its called making s*** work. debian should give it a try sometime, its amazing! now if only those mint devs would tackle redmond...

BeagleBrainz wrote:

Once again many thanks for the feedback.

no problem. after having used this for a minute, i have reassessed my thoughts on this image. this SHOULD be the DEFAULT image released for lcnc! seriously. i havent found a premade image this sweet since lcnc on ubuntu back in the day. i know, i know, andy already explained to me the whole licensing fiasco that makes debian the only option. kind of defeats open source if you ask me.

Nothing to do with climate change, bad policy from the “Green Party”, idiots starting fires, idiots stopping the firies from pre-emptive burning and the Eucalypts 'are incinerators from hell dressed up as trees'; Yeah even the trees are out to get us. I don't think the flora nor fauna want to share this island with humans.

it’s always been hot and dry here.
Actually Chris received permission from the Mint guys to remaster their releases without any rebranding as long as it’s made clear what the situation is.
I can understand why some distros are protective of their branding, there are some weasels out there that would indulge in nefarious activities and give brands a bad name.

I’m glad you like the remastered ISOs . I’ve just uploaded some new images using the XFCE desktop for both RTAI and RT_PREEMPT. I’ll throw the links up shortly. forum.linuxcnc.org/9-installing-linuxcnc...cnc?start=140#159518
Cheers
Rob

BeagleBrainz wrote:

Nothing to do with climate change, bad policy from the “Green Party”, idiots starting fires, idiots stopping the firies from pre-emptive burning and the Eucalypts 'are incinerators from hell dressed up as trees';

yeah, bad policies for sure. here we have the western pine beetle which has killed mile after mile of forrest, but since 90% of the rockies are federal land, logging is not permitted - so as far as you can see there is nothing but standing dead just waiting to go up in smoke. which when one considers that the state is roughly the size of germany and there are only two highways (read "paved roads" and thats being generous) to get anywhere and when some moron who doesnt know how to drive in the snow wrecks, it shuts down half of the state. now lets set one on fire and see how that pans out.... only a matter of when.



anyway back to the issue at hand. out of curiosity, if the performance of rtai is better than preempt, why is preempt the default kernel for lcnc? just wondering because i never even knew that i could put up such numbers. on the debian version of rtai, i was getting a latency 642 with 10 gxlgears running. that is insane. before i was just happy if i could manage 5k latency.

also, along those lines, if this is being used as dedicated machine controller, how difficult would it be to create a release that was just basically kernel / x / openbox / linuxcnc and possibly a terminal? just the basics.

Geesh 4 different flavours and it’s still not enough
TBH I really haven’t given openbox a thought. If it’s in the repos I guess it could be installed and the rest ripped out.
The only issue I can see is that anyone else who gave it a shot would, apart from Ye Ol Linux guys, go into catastrophic meltdown.
It may be just easier to look at the running services and turn off whatever is not required. In a 4 core system you can gain some advantage to isolating cores, either with RTAI or RT but you have to research which actual pair to isolate.
There’s also the option of recompiling kernels to try and get better latency, but information is pretty scarce as to what to actually turn on and off. JT did report last year that he got some pretty good results with a 5 series kernel and Lubuntu, but if you give that a try check to make sure xscreen saver has been installed otherwise you’ll have a Bad Time.

tommylight wrote:

1 - RTAI does not work with ethernet,
2 - newish computers of the "enterprise" type are very cheap and powerful to run any Linux flavor,
3 - RT works with parallel and ethernet,
4 - in general anything above Core2Duo should do fine with RT kernel, not always.

oddwick wrote:

also, along those lines, if this is being used as dedicated machine controller, how difficult would it be to create a release that was just basically kernel / x / openbox / linuxcnc and possibly a terminal? just the basics.

See above number 2, so no real reason to go through all the hoops.

ahh i can see where that would really cause some consternation. my machines are to isolated and use wifi and i use a parallel port for stepping. eventually i will get a mesa combo from JT, but right now its all about the funds and if its not paying the bills, then it has to wait!

as for number 2, i guess what i was getting as was not so much in terms of performance, but as rob so astutely stated:

BeagleBrainz wrote:

Geesh 4 different flavours and it’s still not enough

yes that made me laugh! i know i know there is always that one. now i almost feel like walmart people, but i have more teeth than that. now dont get me wrong here, i really dont want come across as being critical of linuxcnc. this is a fantastic program and i cant begin to state my appreciation and awe for what you devs have put into this. period. you guys rock!

anyway, i just always thought it was just strange that a machine controller would be ran from a full desktop environment. i was just really curious as to why there wasnt a flavor out there that ran more like a kiosk. completely stripped of the extra crap and barebones. not knowing anybody else that actually runs cnc machines and being a hobbyist and not in the industry, i really dont have anybody else to compare to. do other people really use their boxes for stuff other than running their machines? every once in a blue moon i might pull up a browser window to look up a gcode or some reference, but that is rare. i figured that linuxcnc was one of those applications that really would lend itself to being set up more like a server, kiosk, or pos terminal. even on my simple machines i really cant imagine doing anything other than running a cut on it (although a window with some deadpool would make those long jobs alot more fun) let alone some 100k machine. and of course for those of us who use software stepgen, there is always the performance side of the argument.

so is reason #2 the only reason for a desktop environment or am i just a weirdo because i am so isolated in this? no, seriously. i have never actually met another person who has ran anything bigger than a 3d printer so i have absolutely no idea how other people work.

also, when 2.8 drops as an official release, if i am using rtai, will there be a repo so i will be able to update or will i have to compile every time?

I get where you are coming from re kiosk. Having a full desktop makes administration tasks a little easier. Even editing hal & ini files and gcode is easier as well.
With freecad you can have a more or less complete CAD\CAM machining setup on the one machine.
The above is just my thoughts.
Compiling is pretty easy, click on the desktop sortcut to install all the bits needed to to build.
Open a terminal
clone the git repo
checkout 2.8
then you have the choice to build a Run In Place installation (wont replace any existing Linuxcnc install) or you can use debuild to build the required packages to install via dpkg, apt, apt-get or gdebi.
I'll try and update the Linuxcnc packages for the ISOs every 4 weeks or so.

tommylight wrote:

Most of us like to tinker, a lot ! Also, have you ever tried using copy/paste action using just the terminal ? It is doable, but compared to the GUI mode, it is a pain.
I did make a kiosk mode Linuxcnc when Ubuntu 10.04 was the king of the hill, but quickly realized any modification took to long, so i gave up. Also i mostly (well exclusively) use Inkscape for CAM, and having to shift between two PC's is not a valid option.

indeed i do too. that is how i ended up in this mess i would be interested in hearing about how you set up a kiosk. i would love to give it a go. the only time i have to do any modifications is when i recalibrate which is about once a month or so and i just drag a macbook out there and shell into the machine to edit the configs.

i am a mac person - best of both worlds: it just works, but it has bsd under the hood if you need sudo to make you a sandwich. for design, i am all over the place which means i use illustrator, sketchup, viacad, and occasionally turbocad. Anything from autodesk runs like a steaming pile on a mac (even a mac pro workstation with 32gb ram) and once they went to the subscription/cloud model, they can kiss my ... well its not on most peoples list of places to kiss. for cam i use cambam (which i really really really like) and used to vm it, but some of my designs got too ambitious and had to run it on native hardware (which i really really really dont like) or vectric3d which is mediocre at best, but its fast at generating cuts, so i tolerate it but wish it didnt feel like a windows 95 trialware program. makes me want to ctrl+tab to a doom window when the boss isnt looking so that is my convoluted tool chain. and of course linuxcnc makes the magic happen or the bits break. yeah, thats right, design mac -> gcode windows -> cut linux. i always thought that was normal, use the specific tool for the job.

BeagleBrainz wrote:

I get where you are coming from re kiosk. Having a full desktop makes administration tasks a little easier. Even editing hal & ini files and gcode is easier as well.
With freecad you can have a more or less complete CAD\CAM machining setup on the one machine.

i never really thought about that. how many people really do this? interesting... there is no way i could do that tho, my boxes are dedicated to each machine (with the exception of my laser, which shares the fastest box) and not exactly accessible and i get around pasting by using ssh and jobs are uploaded via samba. although working on three different systems, it is so hard to remember between ctrl-alt-option-command keys when doing things!

oh rob, i just gave your latest image a go and i will be posting some issues and questions on the original thread. thank you for all that work!

I use libre cad on my Laptop running mint, then use the Linux version of CAMBAM. Then just transfer files via USB stick, the Linuxcnc has no network connection as I can't be bothered running cat6 to the garage.
After reading some on the Mint forums, the particular desk top environment seems to be so intertwined in the distro it's a pain to change.
If you want kiosk mode I think Slackware might be the go, as it allows for a lot more tinkering under the hood. Yes I have got Linuxcnc going under Slackware, no I'm not going to release an ISO or be building any packages.
The way I look at it if you need more "umpf" ditch the Parallel Port and go with something like a 7i92 that can plug into an existing Parallel Port setup or bit the bullet and go the whole hog with a 7i76e.
f you want to go kiosk mode, do it and then do a write up, but I'm just trying to put something back in, and the best way I feel is appealing to a larger audience.
I really take my hat of to those that have been brave enough to start a thread regarding installing on another Distro, and answering questions that can be found out by a 1 minute google search or reading the thread from start to finish.
I don't understand why it's so hard to downlad packages xyz & c install said packages & reboot.
I will admit it took me a good few hours to install gitlab on my Slackware server, but I had to build most of the required packages and libraries needed. Any questions or problems I had were sorted out by google and nothing was Slackware specific.
If you really really want a pared down system, try Linux From Scratch & Beyond Linux From Scratch then add Linuxcnc to that system. But at the end of the day after all those hours how much latency wise will you be better off ?
Kiosk mode maybe a good idea in an industrial application where you don't want users messing with things, but even then a stripped down menu and permissions as to what they can & can't run can be used. Which I think would be more portable.