On 12/16/2011 07:58 PM, Chris Morley wrote: > A few questions for who ever is looking after the hostmot2 repo.
I've paid only a little attention to the management of Hostmot2, but here's what I think is going on. Peter Wallace originally wrote the Hostmot2 source code back around 2007, and released the source under a permissive open-source license. Which is awesome, huge thanks for that, Peter! (And I believe this worked out well for you in the market, too!) The master copy of the source was stored on his private computers, and ZIP files were (and are still) freely distributed on his website <http://mesanet.com/>. In late 2009, Jeff Epler put the Hostmot2 source code into a public git repo at <git://git.linuxcnc.org/git/hostmot2-firmware.git>. He developed a nice scripted build system, added debian packaging infrastructure, and did a bunch of development on the hostmot2 sources. Meanwhile, Peter continued to develop on his own computers, and occasionally Jeff would merge updates from Peter into the public repo. The hm2 git repo builds the official emc2 hostmot2 debs, available in the linuxcnc.org debian archives. I think these debs are built by Jeff. It's been about a year since the last update from Peter went in to the public repo and new debs were built, and i know Peter has been busy since then! There has been much development that has not made it into the repo yet, and that has not been built into debs for "public consumption". Peter generously builds firmware files with custom configs for folks who ask (including me!), keeping his customers happy. That's the current situation as i understand it. Now, with that background, to address Chris's questions: > first: > PNCconf will now configure Mesa's new 5i25 card which uses the 7i76 > daughter board. > I expect to add support in PNCconf for a servo version too. > The 5i25 is going to be popular with users. > The best user experience is if the XML file PNCconf needs is included > in the repo > with all the other board's firmwares. > The 5i25 is different as the firmware is 'flashed' (basically once) > not loaded each time > like other boards so it really doesn't need the BIT file though there > is one. > I have hand built a minimum XML file that serves PNCconf's purpose. > > So can we add a folder named 5i25 and have the XML file 7i76x2 in it ? When you say "add a folder", I assume you mean to /lib/firmware/hm2, where all the current firmware files live (in per-board directories). These directories and the firmware files in them are part of the managed part of the filesystem; adding things here really should be done by debian packages, such as Jeff's hostmot2 debs built from the hostmot2 git repo. The git repo currently does not contain any code for 5i25 firmwares. We'd need a merge from Peter. The 5i25 uses a Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA. The build system in the git repo may not know how to build firmware for this, as none of the other AnyIO boards use this FPGA. The build system may need to use different versions of the Xilinx tools to build the same source code for different FPGAs (support for the Spartan 2 in the 5i20 has been dropped from recent versions of the tools, but support for the Spartan 6 is not present in the older versions of the tools). So we'd need to set up multiple new build machines with different versions of the tools installed. > second: > Is it possible to have the program that creates the XML file as a > standalone ? > Often Peter creates custom firmware and it's a little tedious to hand > build the > XML files. I looked at it but .... its fairly cryptic to me... I believe XML files are created automatically by Jeff's build system. This should come "for free" if we solve issue 1 above. > third: > It would be nice to correct the bit file for the 7i48's mux select pin I believe this is fixed in Peter's copy of the source. It would be fixed by merging from Peter. > fourth: > Is there any plan to add any firmwares that supports sserial in the repo. Again, Peter's source supports sserial, if we merge it into the repo we'll get sserial support in the debs. Ok, with all that out in the open, I think the current hostmot2 "firmware gap" is a problem. I'd like to try to set up a buildbot for hostmot2 firmware, for all the currently supported boards plus the new 5i25. I don't know VHDL at all, so I'm probably not competent to merge Peter's new source into the repo, but maybe with Peter's or Jeff's help I could do it. And I might even learn some VHDL in the process! This hypothetical future hostmot2 buildbot would be most useful if future hostmot2 development happened directly in the git repo, where the buildbot can see it. -- Sebastian Kuzminsky ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Learn Windows Azure Live! Tuesday, Dec 13, 2011 Microsoft is holding a special Learn Windows Azure training event for developers. It will provide a great way to learn Windows Azure and what it provides. You can attend the event by watching it streamed LIVE online. Learn more at http://p.sf.net/sfu/ms-windowsazure _______________________________________________ Emc-developers mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
