LinuxCNC build for debian running a 5.0.0 Kernel

Hi,

Is there a linuxCNC distribution that supports a newer version of the linux kernel?  i.e. > 5.0.0

I just bought an ASUS motherboard that the screen buffer in older versions of the kernel 4.0.0 do not support.X fails to load. 

len
 

There are several ways of doing this:

1) If you can get the machine to boot (e.g. editing the kernel command line in grub to include nomodeset) then you should be able to install a newer kernel - from debian backports perhaps? I'm hazy on the details but instructions should be pretty easy to find.

2) Start with e.g. an official Debian 11 (Bullseye) distro (comes with linux-5.10) and install linuxcnc onto this. I think you'll need to build linuxcnc from source due to python dependencies, but this is not difficult: see the instructions .

3) Perhaps you can find links to some ready-made "unofficial" linuxcnc distro with a new enough kernel if you look around a bit here on the forum.

Cool, I'll go with option 2. Probably the cleanest.

Thanks for the quick reply.

len

Quickest way is to install Debian Testing nonfree (aka Bookworm v 12). That gets you to about 5.17. You can get this from the amd64 weekly builds here
cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/no...-including-firmware/
use the iso-cd version.

then open a terminal window and type:
sudo apt install linuxcnc-uspace
and optionally:
sudo apt install linuxcnc-uspace-dev

thats it!

Debian 11 (bullseye) does not help much. It gives you the 5.10 kernel  but you need to build linuxcnc from source when Bookworm has the packages builtin.
It is possible to upgrade a Debian 11 system to Debian 12 but I'll let you google how to do that...

 

Hi,

I finally got around to installing Debian 12 and linuxcnc as per your instructions above. Yep, much faster than going from source. Thank you!

Any idea the time line before Debian 12 goes final?

len

A few follow up questions.

With the linuxcnc-uspace-dev does that bring over the linuxcnc source tree, or just the dependencies?

Second... The kernel that comes with Debian 12 shows a SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC version. DOes that need to be updated to a RT kernel?

len

From what I read the realtime kernel is necessary to run on a machine tool.

From section 2.2. linuxcnc.org/docs/master/html/code/building-linuxcnc.html


"LinuxCNC can also be built and run on non-realtime platforms, such as a regular install of Debian or Ubuntu without any special realtime kernel."

So does the Debian package from above need to be recompiled to support a RT kernel? Of if I upgrade Debian 12 with an RT kernel first will the above command install linuxCNC that supports a RT kernel?

"In this mode LinuxCNC is not useful for controlling machine tools, but it is useful for simulating the execution of G-code and for testing the non-realtime parts of the system (such as the user interfaces, and some kinds of components and device drivers)."