Problem building EtherCAT master on Ubuntu 18.04

Hi,

We get the following error when trying to build EtherCAT master 

lraja@lraja-OptiPlex-9010:~/XenomaiIgh/ethercat$ make modules
make -C "/usr/src/linux-headers-4.9.38-xenomai-3.1/" M="/home/lraja/XenomaiIgh/ethercat" modules
make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-4.9.38-xenomai-3.1'
make[3]: *** No rule to make target '/home/lraja/XenomaiIgh/ethercat/devices/generic.o', needed by '/home/lraja/XenomaiIgh/ethercat/devices/ec_generic.o'.  Stop.
scripts/Makefile.build:544: recipe for target '/home/lraja/XenomaiIgh/ethercat/devices' failed
make[2]: *** [/home/lraja/XenomaiIgh/ethercat/devices] Error 2
Makefile:1490: recipe for target '_module_/home/lraja/XenomaiIgh/ethercat' failed
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/lraja/XenomaiIgh/ethercat] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-4.9.38-xenomai-3.1'
Makefile:944: recipe for target 'modules' failed
make: *** [modules] Error 2


Additional information:

lraja@lraja-OptiPlex-9010:~/XenomaiIgh/ethercat$ uname -a
Linux lraja-OptiPlex-9010 4.9.38-xenomai-3.1 #1 SMP Sat Jan 6 21:35:24 IST 2024 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
lraja@lraja-OptiPlex-9010:~/XenomaiIgh/ethercat$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:    Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Release:    18.04
Codename:    bionic
lraja@lraja-OptiPlex-9010:~/XenomaiIgh/ethercat$ 

I have a feeling that ethercat requires preempt_rt for real time
I would recommend you download the linuxcnc 2.9.2  iso from the web site which has the required repositories already set up. After installing, follow these steps to be up and running in a few minutes.
forum.linuxcnc.org/ethercat/45336-etherc...-how-to-step-by-step
and you will be up and running in half an hour. 
 

Yeah, 18.04 is ancient and hit its end-of-life for support and updates last May. So it likely has security issues, etc at this point.

In general, Debian is much better tested than Ubuntu for LinuxCNC, although we know that it compiles on Ubuntu 22.04, at least. Both LinuxCNC and the LinuxCNC-Ethercat code are test-compiled on Ubuntu for every change in Github, but AFAIK that's about the only thing that happens with Ubuntu.

Rod's recommendation for the ISO is probably the easiest way to go.