Jeremy,

Am 30.05.2013 um 12:36 schrieb jeremy youngs <[email protected]>:

>  i
> just wish the manufactureres would give us something with a little bit more
> oomph than these bords have . *

there are stronger alternatives

second, and more important: where exactly should that 'oomph' go, and why?

fact is: the realtime part of linuxcnc can run perfectly fine on even the low 
end boards, including the interpreter as we are forced to do now; even more so 
if supported in some way by underlying hardware; I am pretty sure Charles PRU 
stepgen will outperform any soft stepper on a PC eventually, no matter how much 
the operating system is massaged

the drag factor comes in when you run user interfaces like Axis or Gladevcp on 
the very same platform - and as you are forced to, given the current 
architecture - which mandates you run the UI - and pretty fat ones at that - on 
the same CPU as any realtime tasks; in any timings I have taken the UI's have 
been by far the largest consumers of cycles and memory of the whole setup, with 
the notable exception of emcweb (which lacks generalized HAL access though)

Now what is the answer to that question? throwing more 'oomph' at the problem 
is 'more of the same' - but you'd still not able to use alternatives like say 
touchpads or just a web browser to talk to the damn thing

the conclusion 'let's make these embedded boards better PC's so we can continue 
to run LinuxCNC as it forces us to' isnt the one I think which will lead to 
good results in the individual case as well as a prosperous future for the 
project overall - to the contrary I think it is a bit of a doomed strategy like 
tying the project fate to the fate of the desktop PC

for me the conclusion is clear - we need to fix the warts which have crept in 
and revert to a fully distributed setup which enables a more rational 
slice-and-dice of functionality; just as it was in the original design, and 
from which it has decayed into what it is now. A and we better to so quickly, 
not in some years down the road. Any hopes to, say, make inroads into the 3D 
printer community under this angle are just that, I think.

this is also the reason why I do not invest any energy on making the current 
user interfaces perform well on these platforms - the user interfaces shouldnt 
be there to start with, and I take that as an incentive to focus on the effort 
to move them out of the way

--

just to be clear: I'm not at all critisizing you for the desire to have a 
decent platform - everybody does and that wasnt my point; I am just taking your 
note as an opportunity to point to one of the underlying issues to which there 
is more than one answer, and the best one is clearly not "business as usual"


unfortunately I have the impression this issue is completely off the radar of 
the LinuxCNC developer community, which seems to be largely content to run PC 
boards as long as those are available to run their machines

it might just be the whole effort is mistaken by some to mean 'a LinuxCNC 
desktop, just smaller and cheaper and therefore I dont need to bother' which 
would be missing the bigger picture

- Michael





> i am sure though that we will continue to
> see very good development in these boards . hopefully the manufacturers
> will get to a useable standar for i/o and mainatin an architecture that
> will keep us from having to develop every year for new hardware . to me it
> seems a though the atom lasted quite a while and a similar bord should be
> marketable. but i digress as i know off noone on these lists that is a
> manufacturer so i surely must be preaching to the choir :) lol*
> *
> *
> 
> 
> On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 6:02 AM, Charles Steinkuehler <
> [email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>> 
>> On 5/29/2013 11:05 PM, Przemek Klosowski wrote:
>>> Low power should not be a big deal---after all, LinuxCNC is likely
>>> to drive electric motors rated in kiloWatts.
>> 
>> Low power is important when you put the computer in a sealed box to
>> keep it from getting sprayed with metal chips and coolant, and you
>> have no fans to avoid one of the most common parts to fail.
>> 
>> - --
>> Charles Steinkuehler
>> [email protected]
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (MingW32)
>> Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/
>> 
>> iEYEARECAAYFAlGnI7sACgkQLywbqEHdNFz/VwCfeUAyJi2u1eW+9XOdLZZ5irUJ
>> YPQAoLgOo+6Nk11Zp0MPyxE1AWoFl1hs
>> =F94a
>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Introducing AppDynamics Lite, a free troubleshooting tool for Java/.NET
>> Get 100% visibility into your production application - at no cost.
>> Code-level diagnostics for performance bottlenecks with <2% overhead
>> Download for free and get started troubleshooting in minutes.
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_ap1
>> _______________________________________________
>> Emc-users mailing list
>> [email protected]
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> We conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep
> and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new
> government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of
> arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being
> understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations
> of a tyrannical government." - U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, March
> 9, 2007
> 
> 
> 
> jeremy youngs
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Introducing AppDynamics Lite, a free troubleshooting tool for Java/.NET
> Get 100% visibility into your production application - at no cost.
> Code-level diagnostics for performance bottlenecks with <2% overhead
> Download for free and get started troubleshooting in minutes.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_ap1
> _______________________________________________
> Emc-users mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introducing AppDynamics Lite, a free troubleshooting tool for Java/.NET
Get 100% visibility into your production application - at no cost.
Code-level diagnostics for performance bottlenecks with <2% overhead
Download for free and get started troubleshooting in minutes.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_ap1
_______________________________________________
Emc-users mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users

Reply via email to