This document describes how to install RTAI 4.0 on a Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS using a 3.8.13 kernel, either 32bit or 64 bit version.
Prerequisites
Install Ubuntu 12.04.4 using one of the following images:
http://releases.ubuntu.com/precise/ubuntu-12.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso
http://releases.ubuntu.com/precise/ubuntu-12.04.4-desktop-i386.iso
And then follow the installation instructions here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/
Introduction
If the ROOT user is not created yet, log as your usual user, open a terminal and type:
sudo su -
sudo passwd root
Enter the password for the ROOT user. Log out and log in as Root.
Open a terminal and update your package repository source file:
apt-get update
Some tools are required in order to set up the kernel (You need to be connected to Internet)
apt-get -y install qt3-apps-dev build-essential kernel-package vim cvs
I - Kernel source and RTAI download
cd /usr/src/
Get the kernel source from kernel.org
wget https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/linux-3.8.13.tar.bz2
tar xf linux-3.8.13.tar.bz2
Get RTAI 4.0 from the RTAI homepage
wget https://www.rtai.org/userfiles/downloads/RTAI/rtai-4.0.tar.bz2
tar xf rtai-4.0.tar.bz2
II - Kernel Preparation
cd /usr/src
ln -s linux-3.8.13 linux
cd linux
Applying patch
If you want first simulate the patch application, use --dry-run after -p1.
It won't touch any files on your computer, but you can see if you get Hunks or not.
patch -p1 < /usr/src/rtai-4.0/base/arch/x86/patches/hal-linux-3.8.13-x86-4.patch
Kernel Configuration
cd /usr/src/linux
In order to retrieve your current kernel configuration: (If at this step, questions are asked give the answer by default)
make oldconfig
Now we modify the kernel settings the way we need it (NOTE: some parameters cannot be disabled with xconfig - better to use menuconfig):
make xconfig
Set up the kernel settings as follows:
Processor type and features
- Processor family = Select yours
- Maximum number of CPUs (NR_CPUS) = Set your number (it's generally "4")
- SMT (Hyperthreading) scheduler support = DISABLE IT
Power Management and ACPI options
CPU idle PM support
- Cpu idle Driver for Intel Processors = DISABLE IT
- ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) Support -> PROCESSOR = DISABLE IT
- APM (Advanced Power Management) BIOS support = DISABLE IT
- CPU Frequency scaling -> CPU Frequency scaling = DISABLE IT
CPU idle PM support = DISABLE IT
Save and Quit.
Note (Sylvain, May 2014): these settings should be verified in the .config file,
since there have been cases that xconfig does not do it correctly.
III - Kernel Compilation
cd /usr/src/linux
make && make modules_install && make install
NOTE: The compilation time might be decreased by passing the flags -jX
(with X=number of CPUs you have on your machine). This has for effect to
parallelize the kernel compilation between the CPUs. This will take around one hour.
Kernel Boot Options
This is very important - it took us (and the guys at the RTAI mailing list) ages to find that special config that makes everything work smoothly!
You need to add the following option to the kernel at boot time
lapic=notscdeadline
The best way to do this is in /etc/default/grub in the field GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, i.e.:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash lapic=notscdeadline"
You will also have to change the GRUB_DEFAULT to the number that corresponds to the new kernel.
Finally run update-grub and reboot
update-grub
reboot
IV - RTAI installation
Now that the system has restarted, make sure you booted on your new OpenAir kernel
uname -r
Should give you 3.8.13 as result.
cd /usr/src/rtai-4.0
make xconfig
UPDATE the CPUs number according to your configuration and disable RTAI_USE_NEWERR and real-time COMEDI support in Add-ons. Enable the watchdog, CONFIG_RTAI_WD.
Save and quit. If any error occurs here, solve it and repeat this "make xconfig" step until it's OK.
make && make install
Add what follows, to the end of the file ~/.bashrc.
export PATH=/usr/realtime/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/realtime/lib
Create a file /etc/ld.so.conf.d/rtai.conf with the content
/usr/realtime/lib
and run "ldconfig"in order to take it into account
For OpenAir code compilation, we need to create the following symbolic link:
ln -s /usr/src/linux-3.8.13/include/generated/autoconf.h /lib/modules/3.8.13/build/include/linux/autoconf.h
We will test the RTAI system via the latency test:
cd /usr/realtime/testsuite/kern/latency
./run
If the test fails to start, it could be related to a bad RTAI configuration.
Check error messages with dmesg.
You should have absolutely no overrun and the "lat-max" column values should not exceed 45 000ns.
-- @florian.kaltenberger - 12 Mar 2014