On Dec 25 2015 10:23 PM, Neil Whelchel wrote: >> Can you explain exactly what you mean by embedded? >> i think you mean like a fanuc or tormach where you turn on the >> machine and >> that is all you can see. > > Yes, along those lines. The point is not so much that as it is > reliability. It has to "just work", and it has to do so for people > that do > not know much about linux, or computers.
having a system "just work" and issues of reliability go very much hand in hand. I would add to this that it has to be fault tolerant. > For example, the system I built has everything in the initrd, so / is > mounted read only. Part programs, parameters, and tool tables are > stored in > a small partition that is read-write. I added a button that makes a > tarball > from the files on that partition to a raw partition (a backup > button). > When the machine is booted, if the partition fails to mount, it is > formatted, and the tarball is restored to it. This way, no matter > what disk > corruption may happen, it will always boot, even when the power is > yanked > without a proper shutdown. As noted above about fault tolerant these are decent additions, but I would have to think twice about the implications of having one of the machine operators do a reinstall on the fly from a backup. Sounds reasonable from the onset, but I would sweat the details. Also, if you are already breaking things out into read-only and a writable partition, would it reasonable to set up copy-on-write? I will have to think about this some. >> > To me, it just seems quite unprofessional to have a desktop >> looking >> > environment that is running in a milling machine. Is there some >> reason >> that >> > someone (other than me) has not worked up a distro that is purpose >> built >> to >> > run EMC similar to the way the the folks at MyData made their >> stuff work? >> >> Distro work is a fairly painful and personal opinion work. >> Nobody really likes to do it. Nobody is happy with all choices made. >> It's necessary evil. >> > > I have been maintaining distros for embedded systems for over 25 > years now. > That is what I do. My main product is a distro that runs Asterisk in > an > appliance, which I have modified to run Linuxcnc. This is the first I have heard of your distro. >> > Is there some reason that the user interfaces do not have the >> features of >> > an embedded system included such as a button to shutdown or reboot >> the >> > system, or even an embedded mode that makes them take over the >> whole >> screen? >> >> take over the screen yes - gmoccapy any of gscreen and even AXIS can >> (with >> a bit of work) >> Shutdown and reboot surely that can be added - you are the first to >> ask >> about it >> that I know of. > > Without these features, it is incomplete and it must work in a > desktop > environment. This is the most important thing that stands in the way > of > Linuxcnc being taken seriously by machine builders. It is really the > defining difference between a commercial system, and a hobby system. Adding shutdown and reboot buttons (and the underlying tie code) are trivial, and if you feel so strongly about it then add them and put in a pull request. I would ask you though to not be insulting and demeaning in your comments. If you are then I, and probably others, will likely stop reading what you write and it will end up in another big kerfuffle. You have what appears on the face of it to have some good ideas. If you want us to take them seriously and maybe even help, then show us the code, and don't insult us for decisions made a decade before most of us even got involved with LCNC. EBo -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-developers mailing list Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
