[Solved] TC3.8_4 Real Time Upgrade

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT
Sounds right.

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

Mark it on the calendar, I got something right , I'll try that tomorrow hopefully, or Saturday at the latest ! Will see what happens....

Thanks,

David

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich and curaga,

Installing the pre-built RT kernel and modules worked !, no problems !, everything went perfectly, "uname -r" returns "2.6.33.3-l1-rt19". I've got home and opt set up as persistent, ethernet is going, the bootloader is working properly, all is well !

Now I can work through getting the A-D driver installed again, chrony for GPS time sync, and last step will be to get the actual data acquisition program going !, getting close to finishing the recipe, amazing....

I suppose if I really want to be a "keener", I could try testing the RT kernel somehow re: latencies or something, but I'm too happy with myself at the moment to think too hard about that !

Thanks for all the help.

Cheers,

David

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

For something easy to do, I thought I would install all the extensions (pci-utils, compiletc, etc.), I don't know if it's an issue with my internet, or the tinycore server, but it was taking forever to install compiletc, and it didn't finish properly, base-dev.tcz timed out (md5 sum error or something), after exiting the install (App Finder), I instead typed at a prompt "tce-load -wi compiletc" and got a message, "extension  already installed", yet I know it didn't finish properly.

Is there a way I can uninstall the (partially installed) compiletc package so that I can re-do it properly ?

Typing gcc -v the C compiler does seem to be there, but I don't want to take any chances.

Thanks,

David

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT
First, remove  compiletc.tcz  from your  onboot.lst  file and reboot.

Remove the files listed in the  .tree  file from your  tce/optional  directory:
http://repo.tinycorelinux.net/3.x/tcz/compiletc.tcz.tree
Some of the names are listed more than once. That's normal for a  .tree  file. Don't forget to also remove the matching
.tcz.md5.txt  and  .tcz.dep  files.

Then, one at a time, install (tce-load -wi) the files listed in the  .dep  file:
http://repo.tinycorelinux.net/3.x/tcz/compiletc.tcz.dep
Then see where it chokes.

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the help, I followed your instructions to clean out all the .tcz, .md5 and .dep files, and then started re-loading them one by one. I downloaded binutils.tcz but then I got hung up on base-dev.tcz again, it downloaded 55 % of it and then "stalled".... and then just sits there at that.

I suppose I could copy over all the extensions from my other install of non-rt tinycore, but that seems like I shouldn't have to do that.

Thanks,

David

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

Something weird here, when I type "tce-load -iw perl5" for example, I may get somewhere between 30 to 50 percent done, then it really slows down, and eventually stalls.

But, if I open another terminal, and type "ping 8.8.8.8" before the download stalls, it seems to "wake-up" the download and then it continues on ?

Smaller packages seem to download okay without needing the extra "ping" command, it's almost like I can only download so much data before it stalls, around 3 MBytes.

I was able to fully download base-dev.tcz this way, with the extra "ping" command, and all the others needed for compiletc too, but not sure why I should have to "wake-up" my eth0 with a ping command to force it to keep going (not to stall) ?

Thanks,

David

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT
See if this helps:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,24804.msg157651.html#msg157651

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

Thanks for that extra command, I had ping going continuously in another window and already finished downloading all my extensions that way, but I tried your command and then downloaded ntp for the fun of it and it seemed to work, although ntp is actually not that big.

Can you think of a reason why we would need to do this with the RT kernel ? The "tce-load" always worked really well with my previous non-RT installs.

Thanks,

David

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT
A standard kernel allows a process to run for a period of time, then stops it to allow the next process to run, then stops
that process to allow yet another process to run, and so on. This works well for a desktop setup. It gives every process
run time and is well suited for having multiple applications running at the same time. Applications politely share run time.

A preemptive real time kernel is designed to allow a process to run with minimal delay. Even if it means preempting
another process. This is good for a time critical dedicated process, but not for a desktop system that relies on
cooperation and sharing.

My guess is the download process is hogging all the time and possibly interfering with some housekeeping the system
needs to perform. That's just a guess on my part.

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

Thanks, maybe that's what's going on....possible downside to the RT kernel I guess....

Would "tce-audit builddb" followed by "tce-audit delete compiletc" work to remove compiletc as well ?, even if compiletc was only partially installed, found a thread on that yesterday.

I guess if the 100 MBps ethernet port becomes a bit of a pain (for offloading data from the instrument), we could always just use the USB 2.0 ports on the VDX3, assuming the RT kernel doesn't decide to also preempt the USB copying ! The VDX3 also has a 1000 MBps ethernet port, but, TC 3.8.4 doesn't seem to see it.

I should be able to apply the same process I did yesterday to my non-RT kernel (with 24dsi.ko and chrony going), to "upgrade" that install to RT as well ? Although, I should probably go through all the steps to build the AD driver and install etc, and autoload at boot with the RT pen-drive, just for the practice, and so that I can clean up all my notes.

Thanks,

David

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT

... Would "tce-audit builddb" followed by "tce-audit delete compiletc" work to remove compiletc as well ?, even if compiletc was only partially installed, found a thread on that yesterday. ...

It might. I don't know the exact sequence of commands for that. If you use the  Apps  utility you should be able to do it by
clicking  Apps->Maintenance->Dependencies And Deletions. Then select  compiletc.tcz in the left panel. Then click
Dependencies->Mark for Deletion. Then restart the system and they should be gone.

[MTCAT]

Thanks Rich, I'm hoping to try building the 24DSI driver and making the out of tree package, loading it up at boot time, etc., on Thursday, it's been driving me nuts to have to wait that long though.....

[MTCAT]

Hi Rich,

Embarrasingly, I'm having problems already with building the 24DSI driver on the RT kernel, see attached text file for what I did so far, I must be forgetting something.

After running "./make_all", or "sudo ./make_all", I'm seeing

driver==================================================
make: ***/lib/modules/2.6.33.3-l1-rt19/build: No such file or directory. Stop.
make: ***[24dsi.ko] Error 2
Driver loading: 24dsi ....
--->ERROR<----: module file does not exist: /home/tc/24dsi.linux.4.11.91.32.0/24dsi/./driver/24dsi.ko

I do have linux-headers.2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz installed, sorry about this, I must be forgetting something.

Thanks,

David

[Rich]

Hi MTCAT

... I do have linux-headers.2.6.33.3-tinycore.tcz installed, sorry about this, I must be forgetting something.

Take a look down this path and see what's wrong/missing:

make: ***/lib/modules/2.6.33.3-l1-rt19/build: No such file or directory. Stop.

You may want to review the thread where we hashed all this out. As I recall, it's about 10 pages long, and I don't
remember all of the details.