On 6/15/22 01:49, Vector Hasting wrote:
Thanks again, Andy!
On the debian error board,
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1012789
Jeff Epler responded that this may be an OpenGL issue.
Indeed, I went looking and I cannot run glxgears on my system, so I think
it would be fair to say that OpenGL is a dependency beyond the 'package
dependencies,' and that without it I can't run the plain vanilla, prettier
interface of LinuxCNC.
Jeff was awesome in also pointing out that there's an alternative interface
based on Tcl .
One has to take an ini file (as of this writing, located at
~/linuxcnc/configs/sim.axis ) and modify it for DISAPLY = tklinuxcnc see
http://linuxcnc.org/docs/2.7/html/gui/tklinuxcnc.html for instructions.
It be very indeed olde fashioned like, but rears its head from the swamp to
mine eyes like a fine strapping beasty.
Which is to say that on these SBC based computers, with nary a graphics
card, just a wee Mali Arm based chip answering to another Arm based cpu, on
preempt-rt kernel, seeing even this beasty looks very welcome to me.
There are other threads regarding getting OpenGL *ES* working on the mali
chip (it should support it) but so far I haven't been able to activate that
enough to enable glxgears, which means LinuxCNC would be "right-out."
Might I humbly recommend someone in authority consider adding a more
fulsome error message somewhere so that when LinuxCNC becomes available in
Debian Bookworm, those with SBCs (because there will be more of us trying
this then) will see more quickly that it's our teeny graphics chip which
are the issue, and that we have workaround to have an
atari-nintendo-blue-screen-of-our-dreams for getting LinuxCNC up and
running?
Thanks again to everyone helping here. I'm going to copy part of this to
the debian error board.
Vector Hasting
I'm not sure what going on with your SBC, but I've been running
linuxcnc, either home made or from the buildbot so I'm running
2.9-pre, first on a py3b, now on a pi4b, which have the Mali video,
for about 5 years now.
Probably the major diff is that I built a preempt-rt kernel out
of the raspian 4.19.y src, which got me banned from the raspi forum.
So come install time I had to invent my own u-boot install.
From uname -a on that pi:
i@rpi4:~ $ uname -a
Linux rpi4.coyote.den 4.19.71-rt24-v7l+ #1 SMP PREEMPT RT Thu Feb 6
07:09:18 EST 2020 armv7l GNU/Linux
The install file is an uncompressed tarball of around 28 megs.
That more recent build date was to add the Mali video support.
That did speed up the video quite a bit.
Its running as armhf, not arm64 because the hf is a few microseconds
faster.
The biggest problem for the budget minded is the cost of the interfacing.
I'm using a mesa 7i90HD setup for SPI drive at omygawd speeds, but to
keep noise from blowing its direct connected 3.3 volt fpga, and to give you
something easy to wire up, I used 3 of the 7i42TA's to protect the fpga,
and give those nice little green terminals to wire it up, so the total is
around $200, when I built it. But using that card saves the pi's wired net
port so that pi shows up in my local network just like any of the other 4
computers scattered about the place. I can run firefox and browse the
whole planet but don't, firefox is a pig and slow on the arms.
So I'm wondering exactly what SBC, with mali gfx, you have?
glxgears runs but slower than on intel stuff.
pi@rpi4:~ $ glxgears
157 frames in 5.0 seconds = 31.325 FPS
192 frames in 5.0 seconds = 38.322 FPS
191 frames in 5.0 seconds = 38.027 FPS
189 frames in 5.0 seconds = 37.794 FPS
188 frames in 5.0 seconds = 37.540 FPS
That's over the local net, it runs a bit faster on its own screen.
I'm in the house, 90 feet of cat5 and two switches between me and that pi.
Take care, stay well, Vector
Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
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