• Installing RTAI and Comedi on Ubuntu Hardy

Installing RTAI and Comedi on Ubuntu Hardy

This set of notes outlines the steps I used to build RTAI and Comedi from source on Ubuntu Hardy. They are adapted from a set of notes by Arno Stienen https://www.rtai.org/RTAILAB/RTAI-UbuntuGutsy-Matlab.txt.

Will Dickson 06/10/2008

Installation prep:

• Install fresh version of hardy using ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso Live CD.
• Download source packages for comedi and rtai: comedi-0.7.76.tar.gz, comedi_calibrate-1.tar.gz, comedilib-0.8.1.tar.gz rtai-3.6.1.tar.bz2
• Look in rtai-3.6.1/base/arch/x86/patches for patch. Using hal-linux-2.6.24-x86-2.0-07.patch
• Download corresponding generic linux kernel: linux-2.6.24.tar.gz
• sudo apt-get install the follwoing packages: build-essential, automake, checkinstall, x11proto-xext-dev, xlibs-static-dev, libxext-dev, libncurses5-dev, fakeroot, kernel-package, swig, python-dev, libtool, libboost-program-options-de, libgsl0-dev, libxmu-dev, libxi-dev, autoconf
• copy kernel/rtai configuration files from emc2: config-2.6.24-16-rtai and config-rtai-3.6
• Note, for easier kernel builds add self to src group and give src group rw permisions on /usr/src/ and /usr/local/src

Build test kernel before applying the rtai patch

• extract linux-2.6.24.tar.gz to /usr/src/
• copy config-2.6.24-16-rtai to /usr/src/linux-2.6.24/.config
• run make menuconfig,
• load .config,
• then save and exit
• make-kpkg clean
• make-kpkg --rootcmd fakeroot --append-to-version -configtest --revision r1 --initrd kernel_image kernel_headers
• sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.24-configtest_r1_i386.deb linux-image-2.6.24-configtest_r1_i386.deb
• reboot
• test that kernel is stable w/ this configuration

Patch kernel w/ rtai patch and rebuild

• backup linux-2.6.24 to linux-2.6.24.backup.tar.gz
• cd /usr/src/linux

• patch -p1 < /path to patch/hal-linux-2.6.24-x86-2.0-07.patch

• copy config-2.6.24-16-rtai to /usr/src/linux-2.6.24/.config
• load .config,
• then save and exit
• make-kpkg clean
• make-kpkg --rootcmd fakeroot --append-to-version -rtai36 --revision r1 --initrd kernel_image kernel_headers
• sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.24-rtai36_r1_i386.deb linux-image-2.6.24-rtai36_r1_i386.deb
• reboot

Build rtai w/o comedi support

unpack

• tar -C /usr/local/src -xvf rtai-3.6.1.tar
• ln -s rtai-3.6.1 rtai

configure and build

• cp config-rtai-3.6 to /usr/local/src/rtai/.rtai_config
• make clean
• make menuconfig
  • load .rtai_config
  • Menu Machine (x86): adjust Number of CPUs (default = 2) to 1
  • Menu Add-ons: In-kernel C++ support, remove
• make
• sudo checkinstall --fstrans=no # Use rtai-bare as name

run rtai testsuite

Build Comedilib

unpack

• tar -C /usr/local/src -xvzf comedilib-0.8.1.tar.gz

configure, build and install

• cd /usr/local/comedilib-0.8.1/
• sh autogen.sh
• ./configure
• make
• sudo checkinstall --fstrans=no
• mkdir -p /usr/local/var/lib/comedi/calibrations/

Build Comedi calibrations routines

unpack

• tar -C /usr/local/src -xvzf comedi_calibrate-1.tar.gz

configure, build and install

• cd /usr/local/src/comedi_calibrate-1/
• aclocal
• automake --add-missing
• autoreconf
• ./configure
• make
• sudo checkinstall

Build Comedi kernel modules

unpack

• tar -C /usr/local/src -xvzf comedi-0.7.76.tar.gz

configure, build and install

• cd /usr/local/src/comedi-0.7.76
• sh autogen.sh
• ./configure --enable-kbuild --disable-pcmcia
• make

copy install script to comedi directory

• cp install-rtai /usr/local/src/comedi-0.7.76/

create deb

• sudo checkinstall --install-no --fstrans=no bash install-rtai
• sudo dpkg --force-overwrite -i comedi*.deb
• (need to add udev stuff for creating devices)

Rebuild rtai w/ comedi support

• cd /usr/local/src/rtai
• make distclean
• make menuconfig
  • Menu Add-ons: Select Comedi support over LXRT
  • Menu Add-ons: Specify comedi installation directory (/usr/local/)
• make
• sudo apt-get remove rtai-bare # Remove bare the RTAI package
• ln -s rtai-3.6.1 rtai # If /usr/local/src/rtai disappears
• sudo checkinstall --fstrans=no # use rtai as name

Set create udev rules entry for comedi devices

Note, this insures the /dev/comedix devices are created when the comedi modules are loaded. The script 40-comedi.rules can be found in realtime_setup/40-comedi.rules.

• cp 40-comedi.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/

Test installation

installing comedi and ni_pcimio modules=

install modules

• sudo insmod /usr/realtime/modules/rtai_hal.ko
• sudo insmod /usr/realtime/modules/rtai_lxrt.ko
• sudo modprobe comedi
• sudo modprobe ni_pcimio

Check that comedi devices get created

remove modules

• sudo modprobe -r ni_pcimio
• sudo modprobe -r comedi
• sudo rmmod rtai_lxrt
• sudo rmmod rtai_hal

Test installing comdei w/kcomedilib

install modules

• sudo insmod /usr/realtime/modules/rtai_hal.ko
• sudo insmod /usr/realtime/modules/rtai_lxrt.ko
• sudo modprobe comedi
• sudo modprobe kcomedilib
• sudo modprobe ni_pcimio

Check that comedi devices get created

remove modules

• sudo modprobe -r ni_pcimio
• sudo modprobe -r kcomedilib
• sudo modprobe -r comedi
• sudo rmmod rtai_lxrt
• sudo rmmod rtai_hal

Note, I also created two scripts which basically perform the above actions. They can be found in the realtime_setup/scripts/ directory: rt-comedi and rt-kcomedi. They are used as follows

• rt-comedi start # loads rtai/comedi modules and configures ni_pcimio to /dev/comedi0
  

• rt-comedi start X # loads rtai/comedi modules and configures ni_pcimio to /dev/comediX where 0 <= X <= 15
  

• rt-comedi stop # unloads comedi and rtai modules

Using rt-kcomedi is similar. These scripts can be install using the install-scripts function found in realtime_setup/scripts directory.

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Motor Control Software: motor-ctl

Installation prep

install the following python packages: numpy, scipy, matplotlib, ipython, setuptools, pkg-resources

• sudo apt-get -s install python-numpy python-numpy-doc libblas3gf libgfortran2 liblapack3gf
• sudo apt-get install python-scipy
• sudo apt-get install python-matplotlib python-matplotlib-data python-matplotlib-doc
• sudo apt-get install ipython
• sudo apt-get install python-setuptools python-pkg-resources

Install realtime driver and shared memory library

get mercurial repository

• hg clone ssh://(host ip or url)/path to repo/borf_control borf_control

install

• cd borf_control
• make clean
• make
• sudo make install
• sudo ldconfig

test

• motor-ctl start
• lsmod # look for motor_ctl
• motor-ctl stop

Install python modules

• cd /borf_control/interface/motor_comm_0.1
• python setup.py install or python setup.py develop
• cd /borf_control/interface/motor_shm_0.1
• python setup.py install or python setup.py develop

Set locked memory limits

add these lines or something like them to /etc/security/limits.conf

• username soft memlock 256000 # 250MB
  username hard memlock 256000 # 250MB
  

Test

• motor-ctl start
• motor-comm status
• motor-ctl stop