What is BeagleBone?

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01 Jun 2013 23:18 #35102 by BigJohnT
What is BeagleBone? was created by BigJohnT
I found the BeagleBone Black on the AdaFruit web site.

What is it?

How is it used with LinuxCNC?

Thanks
JT

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01 Jun 2013 23:29 #35105 by andypugh
Replied by andypugh on topic What is BeagleBone?

I found the BeagleBone Black on the AdaFruit web site.

What is it?

How is it used with LinuxCNC?


I don't think it is usable with LinuxCNC at the moment, as it appears to need a 3.8 kernel.
I think it will be working pretty soon.

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01 Jun 2013 23:49 #35108 by BigJohnT
Replied by BigJohnT on topic What is BeagleBone?
Is it used in place of a PC or is there some other function?

JT

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02 Jun 2013 00:07 #35109 by PMDX
Replied by PMDX on topic What is BeagleBone?
Yes, it would be used in place of the computer. It is most likely to be
used as a "headless" control computer, but it may be capable
enough to even run a GUI console at the same time.

Steve Stallings

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02 Jun 2013 00:12 #35111 by cncdreamer
Replied by cncdreamer on topic What is BeagleBone?
John,

I'm sure Michael Haberler will jump in with more details, but he's packaged up an experimental version of LinuxCNC + 3.8 kernel + xenomai which some of us who like living on the bleeding edge are using to run LinuxCNC in simulator mode. He's included work of Charles Steinkuehler which exercises the PRUs on the BeagleBone Black. Several cape designs exist (and Steve Stallings has outlined another in a separate message) to connect this to the real world.

And, yes, it would be used in place of a PC in certain machines. Charles, for example, is driven by a desire to replace the Arduino-based controllers used on many 3D printers. There are still lots of performance issues which may not make it the most attractive solution for many classes of machines, but it's nice to have choices.

As for other functions, they're limited only by our imaginations :-) Sorry, I couldn't help slipping into 1980s PC-sales speak. The BeagleBones and other ARM boards which continue to emerge daily offer tremendous capability at decent cost for good designers to exploit. Look how far the simple cell phone has come in the last decade.

Regards,
Kent

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02 Jun 2013 00:27 - 02 Jun 2013 02:25 #35115 by BigJohnT
Replied by BigJohnT on topic What is BeagleBone?
Thanks for the explanations guys, I tried to follow the mailing list but got lost rather fast so I quit reading them. I can't wait to see what becomes of this.

JT
Last edit: 02 Jun 2013 02:25 by BigJohnT. Reason: can't speel

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02 Jun 2013 10:56 #35137 by jmelson
Replied by jmelson on topic What is BeagleBone?
I used to use the Pico Systems web server as my bench test computer. I just replaced that
computer with a newer one to keep the payment card compliance people happy, and
the parallel ports on that one don't work well. So, I have the old computer headless
and have been doing bench testing via ssh -X for a few weeks. These are both
x86 PC's, running various ubuntu versions.

I notice a surprising amount of lag with LinuxCNC and some with command line
diagnostics. I would hate to try to run a real machine with that kind of lag
on the real gui. I sometimes see a lag of about a second between pushing a
jog key and seeing the motor move. OK for testing a servo amp, but not OK
when jogging an actual machine tool.

So, is this just the result of balky, overloaded computers and kids playing
too many videos on the home network? What kinds of lags would one
expect running LinuxCNC on a headless machine over the net?

Thanks,

Jon

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02 Jun 2013 19:06 #35145 by cncdreamer
Replied by cncdreamer on topic What is BeagleBone?
Jon:

I hope a moderator moves your message to a new topic with a proper subject line so it doesn't get overlooked.

I haven't noticed this kind of lag but I confess I never looked for it either. It seems to me I've seen someone else complain in the past about 'laggy' responsiveness on one of the emc2-lists. I don't recall the specific circumstances but I do recall I didn't understand what was going on.

I have a different issue with running headless via 'ssh -X' that bears on its usage with the BeagleBones. I've seen the sshd process consume lots of CPU cycles as it deals with the X11 traffic. I'm just now starting to look into this because of a question Dave Engvall asked me recently. Maybe I can get some insight into your issue at the same time but I can't promise anything.

In the meantime, can you isolate your two hosts to their own subnet, or at least interconnect them via ports on the same ethernet switch, to see if the lag still exists?

Regards,
Kent

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02 Jun 2013 20:49 #35146 by cncdreamer
Replied by cncdreamer on topic What is BeagleBone?
Jon:

A quick followup...

Google was my friend. Searching on "slow X11 forwarding" got me lots of hits on suggestions to change the underlying encryption algorithm (should apply even in a LAN) and to compress packets (may not make a lot of difference on a LAN).

Try "ssh -c arcfour,blowfish-cbc -XC <host>" and see if that helps, where the -c option lists two faster ciphers than the default AES and the -C option (here combined with -X) specifies compression. See the Ciphers keyword in "man ssh_config" on the sshd host for a list of the available ciphers.

I just tried this between two Ubuntu-based hosts and it seems responsive enough to me, but I don't have any comparison timings.

Note that this is different from solutions offered to speed up the initial ssh connection, which also can be frustratingly slow if reverse-DNS lookup, attempts to use IP6, and various authentication negotiations are occurring. Google is your friend there too.

Regards,
Kent

PS - thanks for bringing this up. It forced me to wake up and smell the coffee!

*

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02 Jun 2013 23:21 #35148 by jmelson
Replied by jmelson on topic What is BeagleBone?
Is there a way to turn off encryption on ssh? It is really not needed between
hosts on a private network.

As for testing, the easiest thing is to try it again when nobody else is
online.

Jon

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