LinuxCNC on Raspberry Pi 5

A few message ago I mentioned a size related error as I tried to install the ISO from Rod's Google drive.

It was suggested that I use Balencia to burn it but that actually didn't work but with searched and finally found a tool that would install it. Then I moved past that I finally wound up with the combination that I wanted to my Pi 5 install. This included all kinds of tools (including those from Raspberry) and even edited the Xfce applications menus for super convenience.

But a word of caution about 'figuring out' your way around an error instead of understanding and fixing it right - once I was done installing and configuring and wanted to make a backup of my uSD card before I moved everything to my NVME I discovered that restoring the backup to a new uSD card failed with a 'too large' error no matter what I did.

I finally used a partition tool to shrink the ROOT partition and was able to both make/restore backups and move everything to my NVME, but it would have been a lot less anxiety had I just waited until ROB posted a version without that quirk.

I guess there's a lot of people that don't use Linux as a daily driver.

dd works fine on Linux for writing the images, or if you like the GUI route Ubuntu based distro have USB image writer which works fine every time.

Another thing I've noticed, which boils down to understanding things. The Linuxcnc images for the RPi are not related to the Official Raspberry Pi images and are not meant to be used as a "daily driver" OS, they are solely for running a CNC machine and maybe for those that want or need to building Linuxcnc.

So to use these images without any issues, don't assume that they have or need the same tools that the images from the Raspberry Pi foundation.

For reference this is the tool I've used for archiving images (one caveat I'm not a windows or mac user, I'm soley a Linux user):
github.com/Drewsif/PiShrink

Our image on the downloads page is already pre-shrunk, just like a well fitting pair of jeans
It does make a big difference in the image size

Sorry forgot to clarify, from sd card to archive image.

[begin_off_topic_rant]
I can't stand wearing jeans or any long pants, why they insist we wear long sleeve shirts and long pants is the Aussie summer is beyond me, then they have a big song & dance about heat stress and keeping liquids up.

Funny thing the shunters on the rail said long pants were a safety issue and dont have to.
And don't get me started on having a ruptured disc diagnosed as a pulled muscle.
[end_off_topic_rant]

On the topic of 'daily driver'...

I switched to a pure linux environment for CAD, CAM and obviously LinuxCNC for g-Code execution. Being rusty on Linux I stumbled onto Unbuntu for my desktop and the ISO from LinuxCNC for my Pi 5 leaving Xcfe in place assuming its reputation for being light.

Plenty of upside on being Linux across the board but being new on top of very different environments depending on where my chair is pointed is a little bit disorienting. LOL

I can never remember where I installed what! LOL

Nevermind

Dear elovalvo
Did you install successfully igh ethercat for Rasp 5?
I tried to install, but I got the error.
This error is " modprobe: FATAL: Module ec_master not found in directory /lib/modules/6.6.21-rpi999-rpi-2712"

I have never used EtherCat with Raspberry so I can't answer you.
However, I read on the forum that others have had a similar problem
(forum.linuxcnc.org/9-installing-linuxcnc...ectory-lib-modules-6 -1-0-25-rt-amd64#310761).
Maybe you can find some useful information there.

I finally feel like my basic Pi5 (NVME boot) / Mesa 7i95T system is basically functional.

I used Rob's link to what I think is his Google Drive to get what I believe is a LinuxCNC 2.9.3 / Kernel 6.6 RT ISO.

Because of being new or very rusty on virtually every level, I wound up stumbling my way through that process relying on the gracious help from the community.

I will attach a number of files for anyone to glance at or comment on if they wish.

Since I know now that there are many choices I should do differently I ordered an inventory of NVME and SD cards to start over clean and also try out other combinations of options without abandoning what I have.

I have a few questions before I start over 'clean':

1) Is the Pi5 2.9.3 ISO that I downloaded (or a newer one) now attached to the link on the Downloads page or is the one I downloaded still the latest?

2) I installed NetworkManager because I was struggling getting my WiFi working for internet access while dedicating the cable Ethernet to the Mesa board. Would it be better for me to avoid NetworkManager this time around?

3) I installed the Raspberry KVM because I thought that it might be useful sometimes, but I have never really used it so far. I'm wondering if there might be some latency implications to its presence or use?

I also included a screen capture for the latency histogram if anyone is curious.

Thanks

I read your post and it took a while to sink in how well running the native RaspianOS with the 6.12 kernel for what I want to accomplish.  I'm guessing that 6.12+ might be a real game changer across the board but I remember discussions about certain run-time flags being used to determine if PREEMPT_RT was part of the build and people commented that some don't match up yet.

Do you think that might be a hurdle in the short / mid  term?

Do you think someone familiar with the run-time testing code might already be working on a fix to any of those problems?