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I am trying to install RTAI and have used EMC's Live CD earlier. Now I am unable to install it on a newer Xeon machine.

I have installed it successfully on single-core and dual-core machines earlier and we recently got a newer machine with the specs below:

Processor: 2 x Quad-core Xeon (2.53GHz)
Video chipset: XGI Z11M (onboard)
RAM : 12 GB
HDD: 2TB

Method 1: I could boot using the LiveCD

Method 2.
a) For the installation to work, I had to use 'xforcevesa' in the Grub menu. Without this, the screen just goes blank and won't proceed. It appears that the issue was with the video chipset.

b) I tried to use a PCIe video card (ATI) and changed the BIOS to use off-board video. That didn't help either.

c) After installation, when I restart the PC, I get a blank screen.

d) I could go to the recovery console and see the entries for the OS in the GRUB menu. When I select the OS, I cannot get past the blank screen.


Method 3. I tried to install Ubuntu 10.04 and used "apt-get" to download and install EMC's *.deb packages. On reboot, I get blank screen again.

Method 4: I tried to patch and compile the RTAI version of a vanilla kernel (2.6.32.11). I used EMC Live CD's .config file and modified it for the Xeon processor. However, I get a lot of messages/errors at reboot. For ex (the last few lines):

? pcibios_assign-resources+0x0/0x6b
kernel_init+0x128/0x17c
? kernel_init+0x0/0x17c
kernel_thread_helper+0x7/0x10

Any suggestions/ideas to get this working?

Thanks.

Have you tried nomodset?
ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132

Rick G

Yes, I did. I forgot to mention that.
Thanks.

emc2u1 wrote:That's a beast of a machine, and an order of magnitude better than EMC2 needs.
(I am running EMC2 very nicely on a 1.6GHz Atom with 1GN ram and an 8GB (yes, really) SSD HD.)

It's not a very constructive suggestion, but I would say keep the Xeon for CAD/CAM and gaming while the machine is running, and get a mini-ITX Atom board to be the machine controller.

When you boot from the live cd do you get good numbers on the latency test?
Can you turn the extra cores off in your bios to try?
Can you boot in low resolution mode?
Can you edit your config file to use an ATI video driver when you are using the add in card?
(I did have a machine that refused to use the VESA driver)

If you need to compile you might want to look here for some ideas...
code.google.com/p/neo-technical/wiki/emc2ubuntu

If you have another computer with EMC working on it can you swap that hard disk into the new machine and see if it boots?

Rick G

Hi,

I didn't try the first thee you mentioned (no latency tests, didn't turn off cores -- don't remember seeing it in the bios, and low-res mode). I'll try those.

What driver should I be using for the ATI driver?

I did try something similar to the compilation procedure you linked. I used a .config file from a working EMC2 machine and it didn't work. I'll try this method and see again.

Thanks.

Rick G wrote: