Mesa 7i96S

Chris, yeh Debian made a messy decision recently by adding non-free-firmware for Debian 12.
Debian made this as a new feature and it only includes the  kernel modules.
dkms drivers are not part of the kernel. Dkms compiles driver source code so that on a kernel upgrade, the driver is rebuilt.

So to get dkms drivers, you also need to add non-free to sources.list

I cover this in my how to
docs.google.com/document/d/1jeV_4VKzVmOI.../edit?usp=share_link

I am hoping this content will find its way into the getting Linuxcnc docs for 2.9. Working on it. I have sent a draft PR and as of today I have a helper who is gonna review stuff for me...

PR's to this file in my git under the rodw-getting-linuxcnc branch are welcome
github.com/rodw-au/linuxcnc/blob/rodw-ge...etting-linuxcnc.adoc
 

chris@cnc wrote:

I found the non-free firmware drivers shifted from non-free to non-free-firmware section in bookworm.  After setup in /etc/apt/sources.list you  could install "sudo apt install firmware-realtek" realtek firmware drivers. I am unsure what is the better option, dkms or non-free-firmware. Give it try...

When I looked at that module, it does not cover them all but more like the r8169. Try it and see....

Thank you chris@cnc!

I tried this method, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.
The output of sudo find/sys |grep driver.*02:00 (which is my ethernet card)
is: /sys/bus/pci/drivers/r8169/0000:02:00.0
Which I believe is unchanged.

I still have the error finishing read.

I also tried getting some benchmark, before and after, using nmap:

sudo nmap -sU -v --min-rate 100000 10.10.10.10

which scans with UDP (-sU), gives verbose output (-vv also possible), by sending a minimum of 100,000 packets per second, to 10.10.10.10

It gives latency in seconds, but they pretty much match the results of ping. Perhaps .02ms difference (the UDP test being faster).

Did this before and after, and the numbers didn't really budge.

So I'm going to try rod's method and touch back on this list.

Thanks tho!

What kernel are you using?

Currently on:
Linux 6.1.0-9-rt-amd64

Working with rod on the documentation, once I understand his map a little better, I plan on changing first my realtek drivers, then the kernel.

andypugh wrote:

pncconf does call mesaflash so if you don;t have mesaflash that might explain why discovery is not working.

Does "sudo apt-get install mesaflash" work?

Did you manage to create a config in Debian 12? If you did, then that same config should work in 11.
 

Hi Vector, tommylight and andypugh,

Thank you for the trouble-shooting discussion on Unspecified Error with Discovery option.

My computer is Raspberry Pi 4, Debian 12 Bookworm, the Kernel is Linux picnc 6.6.59-rt45-v8-behai-rt-build+ #1 SMP PREEMPT_RT Sat Nov  2 10:20:46 AEDT 2024 aarch64 GNU/Linux.

I am also able to ping it at 10.10.10.10, and I did have the same error when used Board Discovery.

Failing discovery, I selected:

[
Board name = 7i96s-Internal Data
Firmware = 7i96s_d
]

It appears to work, since I can move to other screens... I was not able to proceed any further, because I don't know what to do next yet.

Then I retry by running sudo apt-get install mesaflash, and afterward Board Discovery works:

[
Board name = Discovered: 7i96s
Firmware = ~/mesa0_discovered.xml
]

I am happy, this is a progress for me. I have read the configuration the HAL parts of the manual. But it still not registered yet... I have to do some more reading.

And also I have to learn how to connect the CL57T-V4 closed-loop motor driver the 7i96s.

Thank you and best regards,

...behai.