Re: LINUX/EMC Help

Don't know if these are the minimums, but I installed on a 1 gig hard drive
and used 32 mb ram. Someone mentioned that the EMC docs say that 32 mb is
the minimum memory, but I have not seen that (haven't looked either). I have
a Pentium 100 with 16 mb at work running RedHat 5.2 and X windows works just
fine. I am going to load EMC on it this week and see if the simulation runs
OK with 16 mb.

The only real pointers I can give you regarding loading Linux is what worked
for me and may not be correct or optimum, but it seems to work just fine.

Partitioning your hard Drive.
Use Disk Druid when prompted by the install program and 1st delete your
current partitions than create your new ones. I used partition as follows
/ 100mb
/usr 200mb
/usr/local 300mb
/usr/src 300mb
swap 50 mb
All are ext2 type except for the swap partition which is the Linux swap
type.

Selecting packages.
Don't pick ones you are not really going to use at it takes space and can
required additional configuration. Once you have picked what you want select
the option to see the individual packages within groups and go to the
base/kernel group and select all of the items in it. This will give you all
of the pieces you need to apply the real time patch. If you skip this step
you can add them later, but it is easier to do it now.

Setting up X-Windows.
Make sure you know the exact chipset you have on your video card and if it
is not supported (check the compatibility list on the RedHat site) just go
buy one that is or you will be frustrated. Also, if your EXACT monitor is
not listed use the Generic monitor unless you have a multi sync monitor and
then use Generic multi sync. If you are at all unsure about having the
correct selections for the X setup I would suggest you skip it during the
installation as you can set it up once your system is running in console
mode. To skip the X install you select back and then you get an option to
bypass it. The reason I suggest skipping it if you are unsure is that if you
pick the wrong options you will be greeted with a blank or un-viewable
screen and have to abort the installation by rebooting and then start it all
over from scratch. Sure there is a better way, but this is my experience.

If you skipped the X setup during the installation you can go back to it by
logging as root (this is the user name of the system administrator and for
our purpose the login you will always use) and entering Xconfigurator as the
command prompt (Linux is case sensitive, so it has to have a capital X in
this command and all else is lower case.)

That is it for my loading Linux hints.

Following is the step by step that Matt Shaver gave me with a few things I
edited.

Here are some brief instructions I got from Matt Shaver who got them from
Fred Proctor and which Matt has expanded and edited:

EMC Software Installation Instructions

These instructions assume you have Redhat Linux 5.2 already installed and X
Windows correctly configured.

1. Update the Linux kernel headers and sources. These updates are needed for
the RT-Linux patch to work properly. The updates are at:

http://www.redhat.com/swr/ftp.redhat.com/redhat/updates/5.2/i386/

as Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) files. Download the kernel-headers and
kernel-source packages as well as the update for the X server you are using
and anything else that strikes your fancy into a directory of your choice. I
have always downloaded and updated everything.

As user 'root', cd to the directory containing the update RPM files and do:

rpm -Uvh kernel-headers-2.0.36-3.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh kernel-source-2.0.36-3.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh etc... for all the remaining updates you downloaded

When updating the kernel headers you will probably get an error message
saying something like "script failed to complete". I have always ignored
this error and there was no problem. You may get a message about
"dependencies". This means that the RPM you are trying to update depends
upon another update being installed first. The dependencies will be listed
and you must update those RPMs first. Usually, I just do:

rpm -Uvh *.rpm

repeatedly until I get messages indicating that all the RPMs are updated and
nothing more can be done.

(Note: I was able to get all the kernel components I needed from the RedHat
CD. The CD contained a current version of the kernel 2.0.36-7, but the
installation program did not install the header or source files. To install
the packages from the CD you first need to mount the cd. Put the CD in the
drive and at a command prompt type in:
mount /mnt/cdrom
Then you can use the package manager in X-Windows to look at the available
packages. Go to the Base/Kernel folder and select all the packages in it and
click install.
If you do as I now suggest and select this items individually in the Linus
install you can skip this and go straight to # 2)


2. Install the RT-Linux patch, available at:

ftp://ftp.isd.cme.nist.gov/pub/emc/emcsoft/release9J.tgz

Download this file and place it into /usr/src.

As user 'root', do:

cd /usr/src
tar xzvf rtlinux-0.9J
cd linux
patch -p1 < ../kernel_patch
cd ../rtl
make all

3. Recompile the kernel.

As user 'root' from a terminal window in X, do:

cd /usr/src/linux
make xconfig

You need to be running X Windows for the 'make xconfig' line to work. If you
don't want to run X, you can do 'make config', and configure in text mode.
You would do well to take some time with this process and eliminate any
modules or kernel support for hardware you don't have or features you won't
use or don't need. This will SPEED THE BOOT PROCESS and DRASTICALLY REDUCE
THE TIME NEEDED TO COMPILE THE KERNEL! Failure to heed this advice probably
won't cause any problems, but the command 'make modules' can take more than
an hour to execute if many modules are to be built. Configure your kernel to
your liking, or leave it as-is by clicking 'Save and Exit'. Now continue
with the kernel compile:

make dep
make clean
make zlmage
make modules
make modules_install
cp arch/i386/boot/zImage /boot/vmlinuz

If there were errors that prevent the kernel from being compiled, the
file'arch/i386/boot/zImage' won't exist and thus can't be copied. If you
have trouble go back to the beginning of this step, reconfigure, and try
again.

4. Edit /etc/lilo.conf so that it looks somewhat like this:

boot=/dev/XXX <-- leave xxx as is, e.g.,
hda1map=/boot/mapinstall=/boot/boot.bprompt timeout=50image=/boot/vmlinuz
<-- change this to /boot/vmlinuz label=rtlinux
root=/dev/XXX <-- leave XXX as is, e.g., hda1 read-only append=�mem=XXm"<--
XX = the number of MB of RAM you have - 1

31 for a 32MB system, 63 for a 64MB system, etc.

(Note: I would suggest you setup lilo.config so you can boot to your new
kernel as the default and your old kernel as an option. This way if you had
something fail on you in compiling the kernel you can still reboot to the
original kernel and try again. The way you do this is by having 2 sections
in your lilo.conf file.
Here is what mine looks like:

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
prompt
timeout=50
image=/boot/vmlinuz-1
label=rtlinux
root=/dev/hda1
read-only
append="mem=31m"
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.0.36-0.7
label=linux
root=/dev/hda1
read-only

This makes it boot to the real time version if I do nothing on bootup and
allows me to boot the original kernel by typing:
linux
at the LILO: prompt. You can press the TAB key when you see the LILO: prompt
and it will show you the labels for your boot choices. With the above
lilo.conf file you would see rtlinux and linux.)

5. Run LILO to set up your machine to boot the new kernel.

As user 'root' do:

/sbin/lilo

and then reboot.

6. Now you need to get the EMC software from:

ftp://ftp.isd.cme.nist.gov/pub/emc/emcsoft/linux_2_0_36/

and put it into /usr/local/nist. This is available as one big file
namedemc-DD-MMM-YYYY.tgz, where DD = the day, MMM = the month, and YYYY =
the year that the file was created, or 4 smaller files that will each fit on
a floppy. To use the small files you can copy them onto the disk from
floppies and then use 'cat' to combine them back into one file.

7. Unpack the files and install the software.

As user 'root', do:

cd /usr/local/nist
tar xzvf emc-DD-MMM-YYYY
./install

This will build all the programs and put all the files where they belong.

8. Configure the script that runs the EMC and the .ini file that controls
its operation.

This is a big subject in itself, however you can try out the software by
getting these two files:

http://www.erols.com/mshaver/run.64step378
http://www.erols.com/mshaver/64stepper.ini

and putting them in /usr/local/nist/emc. These files assume you have
followed the above instructions about where to put the software. They are
also specific for machines with 64MB of RAM. If you have a different amount
of RAM you must edit these files to replace all instances of the
string0x3F00000 with a value such as:

Remember that if your machine has other than 64MB of RAM you'll need to
change the 0x3F00000 to match your system:

0x0F00000 for 16MB systems
0x1F00000 for 32MB systems
0x2F00000 for 48MB systems
0x3F00000 for 64MB systems
0x4F00000 for 80MB systems
0x5F00000 for 96MB systems
0x6F00000 for 112MB systems
0x7F00000 for 128MB systems
etc...

These files also depend upon there being a parallel port at address
378h.This corresponds to LPT1 in DOS and if you only have one port it will
most likely be this. If not you must edit these files to replace all
instances of the string 0x378 with 0x278 or 0x3BC, whichever is appropriate.
Be sure to disconnect anything plugged into the port you use since this
version of the EMC toggles bits to run stepper motors and could cause
"interesting" things to happen to printers. The advantage of trying out the
EMC using these files is that there is no other hardware required. To start
the EMC:

As user 'root' from a terminal window in X, do:

cd /usr/local/nist/emc
./run.64step378

Of course if you edited the files you may also have changed their names
souse the appropriate command. Note that the 'run.' script refers to the
'.ini' file explicitly by name, so if you change the name of the '.ini 'file
you will need to edit the 'run.' script to match.

As always, if any of your impossible mission team is caught or killed...oh,
wait a minute, that's from some different instructions. Anyway, if you have
questions (you will), just call or write and I'll do my best to help you get
going.

Good Luck (you'll need it)[This is the comment I got when Matt sent this
info to me]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: WAnliker@... [mailto:WAnliker@...]
> Sent: Sunday, June 20, 1999 3:52 PM
> To: CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@onelist.com
> Subject: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] LINUX/EMC Help
>
>
> From: WAnliker@...
>
> I am getting ready to set up Red Hat 5.2 LINUX and EMC on a p120 computer
> I am need of help on this project.
> What do I need for the computer system? I will have only the
> LINUX and EMC
> on the system, unless it is recommended that I also have the
> CAD/CAM on the
> same computer. This computer will be in the shop, with the mill
> and lathe.
> I have another computer that the CAD/Cam will reside on operating under
> Windows 98. I plan to transfer the programs with floppies if feasible.
> How big of a hard drive?
> How much Memory?
> Any other requirements or recommendations?
>
> More questions on LINUX/EMC coming later. Hopefully someone will
> spell out
> the requirements, and the setup for loading LINUX, and the set up
> for EMC as
> far as loading onto the computer, setting parameters will come
> later. This
> basic setup information could be really helpful to everyone that is not a
> guru, in getting there LINUX operating system and EMC set up.
> Then they can fight to get it to run.
> Thanks,
> Bill
> List Manager
>
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