RTAI Puppy Linux with EMC2 CNC control software - pre alpha

[cncuser]

hi puppyowners,

i played around with puppy and made a tiny puppy-unleashed iso
including only basic software (editor, shell, puppytools) a RTAI
enabled kernel and EMC2 for playing around with CNC

the system should have about 128mb ram for a hd install
and 256mb ram when running puppy entirely in ramdisk.

its a bit of a hack. as it untars a filestrukture into /root/cnc after
initial booting. and consists of slightly modified 0base... files
and changes to .fvwm95rc during building of the root-fs.

also there is no documentation or source online right now. it was
a bit of a midnighthack and i didnt manage to pack the stuff together
and upload it. ill do that within this week. this is the initial pre release.
other releases may follow during the next weeks.

if someone wants to give it a try, it can be downloaded here:

http://box.hinternet.at/puppy/emc2puppy/emc2puppy.iso

tell me what you think about it.

ill try to answer any questions as soon as possible but am not regularly
online.

[Flash]

I happen to know of someone who owns a machine shop with CNC tools and already considers himself a Linux expert of sorts. I'll try to make this known to him.

I don't know some of the acronyms you used. What do RTAI and EMC2 stand for?

[cncuser]

some links and info bout rtai and emc....

emc2 is the all new Enhanced Machine Controller
software and drivers for running g-code (cnc control language)
with various stepper or servo interfaces via realtime enabled linux.
this is where RTAI (Real Time Application Interface) comes into place.

i hope i find a place to get sourcerer. if not i have to create
a "filesystem patch" for i need to get mesa and or hw accelerated X
running for getting the nice gui app axis http://axis.unpythonic.net/index.cgi/
onto emc2puppy.

so i am going to compile python with various extensions and opengl
capable X for puppy.

[/url]

[Lobster]

Very interesting - you know about the Puppy submarine guys?
May I use Robopup or K9 (Dr Who's robot companion - making a comeback in the new series) as a name for a small wiki news link?

[cncuser]

no i dindt, but i read the wiki news about it. interesting stuff indeed

the "Robopup or K9" thingy, well, you may use whatever you want.
i just dont see no connection to it, as for now it only has software
for driving some cnc hardware. i dont know of anyone driving a
robot using g-code its mainly used for drilling, milling, lasercutting
and things like that.

but that may change, im going too look for other RTAI apps and
look if i can integrate them into em2puppy.

emc2puppy will change its name then to something more realtime
like "puppy sit" which is done in a predictable time, with a good puppy.
just a thought

however, right now emc2puppy is just for emc users who want
to test emc2 fast and painless. or programmers that want to run their
RTAI aplikations on a fast and easy to setup environment.

[edoc]

but that may change, im going too look for other RTAI apps and
look if i can integrate them into em2puppy.

Now that Puppy is in v2.xx with Linux Kernel 2.6 real-time apps make greater sense.

On an Amateur Radio list re. digital communications there has been a concern about
developing more users of disaster/emergency digital communications without the need
for costly hardware interfaces.

The claim has been that no common OS did real-time thus were too slow. Someone
just posted the following links and is appears clear that Linux Kernel 2.6 solved much
of that problem (unlke the MS version of windows) and that some have taken it even
further.

http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8073314981.html
http://www.mvista.com/products/realtime.html
http://www.realtimelinuxfoundation.org/
http://source.mvista.com/linux_2_6_RT.html
http://www.timesys.com/
From: Dave Bernstein aa6yq@ambersoft.com

Is there any activity within the Puppy family leveraging these breakthroughs?

I sure would like to be able to use Puppy for more digital communications apps!

Thanks! & 73, doc KD4E

[Flash]

Why would Amateur Radio digital communications require a real-time operating system? It seems to me that implementing a softmodem would be very similar, and Linux drivers exist for softmodems.

[edoc]

Why would Amateur Radio digital communications require a real-time operating system? It seems to me that implementing a softmodem would be very similar, and Linux drivers exist for softmodems.

Increasing the speed of digital communications over the radio, with accuracy, seems to
be a function of multiple variables. At least according to those who are in the thick of
such software development.

Real-time has been determined to be necessary to the elimination of a $300. piece of
hardware.

Where disaster/emergency response volunteers are often on limited hobby budgets
$300. for an occasional and limited use device has limited the development of the
necessary pool of properly equipped volunteers.

I am guessing that an awareness of real-time would lead to others developing new
apps to leverage the feature.

From the 2005 thread it sounded as though real-time had applications in the workshop
and I am guessing it may have a value in robotics.

This is way over my head but the folks who know about such things seem to be chaffing
at the bit to put it to use!

doc

[jam]

edoc,

Reatlime functionality will be merged into the standard Linux 2.6 kernel in upcoming releases, so if Puppy keeps up with the kernel releases, Puppy by default will also be a true Real Time OS - its small footprint should also make it attractive for use in embedded devices.

Realtime News: http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/ar ... hp/3627831

Excerpt from the article follows:

The MontaVista effort merged with an effort led by Red Hat's Ingo Molnar, which is now working on a series of patches that, when completed, will provide full Real Time capability to the standard Linux kernel

[edoc]

edoc,

Reatlime functionality will be merged into the standard Linux 2.6 kernel in upcoming releases, so if Puppy keeps up with the kernel releases, Puppy by default will also be a true Real Time OS - its small footprint should also make it attractive for use in embedded devices.

Realtime News: http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/ar ... hp/3627831

Excerpt from the article follows:

The MontaVista effort merged with an effort led by Red Hat's Ingo Molnar, which is now working on a series of patches that, when completed, will provide full Real Time capability to the standard Linux kernel

It is exciting to be with the best distro PUPPY!
at the best time in the development of the Linux kernel!

doc

[CatmanDru]

The 'Machine Puppy' refered to in this thread is included in the VersionsPuppy page of the puppy wiki. The url there points to this thread. However the url in the first post retrieves only a blank page. Therefore a valid download url is needed for the VersionsPuppy page. If anyone has one, please place it on the page:

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/VersionsPuppy

[muggins]

does anyone know if this is the same as coolcnc, which is based on puppy?

they have a forum at:

http://cooltool.he.fdread.org/cncforum/index.php

and have links to isos at:


http://web23.he.fdread.org/cncforum/coo ... -1-0-1.iso

http://cooltool.he.fdread.org/cncforum/ ... cncb05.iso

[bonny]

Hello..

As this thread is little old I hope that someone stil has emc2puppy.iso file as link above is death and I wan't to try it..

Slavko.

[mikeslr]

This is an interesting project. I've emailed cncuser via pm requesting he check this thread and provide assistance.

mikesLr

[mikeslr]

This is far beyond my technical capabilities, but it occurred to me that as building a custom kernel to enable EMC2 could be done based on Ubuntu 8.04,

http://www.linuxcnc.org/

and Woof can be both modified to create/work with a custom kernel and utilize ubuntu packages, someone who knows what they're doing could take that approach to develop an EMC2 Puplet rather than trying to adapt the Standard Puppy for that purpose.

And perhaps hmsurat could be contacted for advice. See his post @
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/search ... 5dcadac8d8

But this thread should be moved to Puppy Projects rather than remain on the thread pertaining to pets.

mikesLr