109jb wrote:
I tried it twice with the same results. Here is what I did:
1- Power up the Pi
2- login using pi, and raspberry as the username and password.
3- "startx"
The Pi flashed some instructions on the screen, went black and then sat there.
John B.
I think maybe the web page instructions are not so clear as I changed the window manager that X uses, the twm window manager which requires you to left click and hold down your mouse button for the menu to appear!
Also for some reason X does not show the cursor pointer until the mouse button has been clicked, and also the system is quite slow so it may take upto 20 seconds after the screen blanks before X responds to mouse input. Once you have left click and hold the menu should appear select debian->applications->shells->bash and then release the left mouse button.
3 seconds then a window outline should appear, click where you want the shell window to appear, then twm has a focus follows pointer policy so the mouse cursor must be over the window to allow you to input events, make sure the pointer is in the window then type 'cd emc*', then type './launch.sh'. You should then get the linuxcnc configuration selector window appear after 10 seconds (twm will give window outline and you must click where you want window placed). from the configuration window you MUST select the rpi->stepper_mm option, and read the instruction in the right window pane (the pin defs are very badly formatted). Click the 'OK' button the selection window will disappear and the splash screen show up, then Axis window should appear after 30 seconds (maximum 50 seconds if not then there is some serious error so reboot and start again).
I think that there is still problems with the RT_PREEMPT kernel and that is maybe causing corruption due to incorrect handling of mmc reads when realtime interupt occurs, this maybe is causing strange behaviour of X when loading programs from the SD card, also when loading axis sometimes seems to pause until a mouse button is clicked within the window(if a small icon appears in top left saying 'axis' double click it and the window should fullscreen then try clicking on the right hand opengl plot window.
As said this is an early test just to get feedback on if the driver is missing steps generated by the motion controller because the DMA program is losing synchronisation with the servo thread. It is really for experts only, although it does drive motors you should be extreamly careful as the driver does not currently take any input for endstops or estop and you should not try connecting any feedback to the rpi gpio pins as they ARE NOT 5volt tolerant and you will destroy the pin (you can add a couple of resistors to an input to voltage divide the signal, but you have to work that out yourself)
REITERATE THIS IS NOT FOR BEGINNERS, IF YOU CONNECT THINGS INCORRECTLY YOU COULD HURT YOURSELF OR DESTROY YOUR RASPBERRY PI COMPUTER.
DO NOT CONNECT ANY ELECTRONICS AS INPUTS TO THE RPI AND DO NOT USE ANY 5VOLT ELECTRONICS DIRECTLY TO THE GPIO PINS.
