Thursday, January 12, 2017

Beta Test volunteers wanted.

For a while there has been a parallel repo on github that incorporates the multicore capabilities developed by Michael Haberler and Mick Grant a couple of years ago into the main machinekit repo.
This talk from 2015 gives the full details.
https://plus.google.com/events/cvhj9r8m2gh0v0kj7ccme36hlpo

Volunteers are wanted to do the initial backward compatibility testing.
95% of existing configurations should work unchanged.
A few specialised configs that use ring buffers and some other components will require minor API syntax changes, which can be advised on a case by case basis.

After testing for any problems in backward compatibility, it is intended to merge with the main machinekit repo.
Thereafter the features of multicore can be tested and rolled out, without any impact upon the majority of the user base, who can just carry on as before.

Testers need to be able to build and run RIP builds,
        (http://www.machinekit.io/docs/developing/developing/ )
set debugging levels
        ( http://www.machinekit.io/docs/config/ini_config/#sub:EMC-section  - DEBUG=7 is normally sufficient)
and provide comprehensive logs of any errors
        (copy of relevant section of /var/log/linuxcnc.log, copy of dmesg for segfaults etc. and stderr output to terminal)
plus access to complete configs that produce them.
        (preferably via a github repo)

Testing across as wide a range of computers and machines as possible is crucial.

The repo is here http://github.com/machinekit/machinekit-multicore.git

If you are able to test;
from a terminal session
clone it
        (git clone http://github.com/machinekit/machinekit-multicore.git)
build it locally
        (cd machinekit-multicore/src && autogen.sh && configure (insert any platform specific switches) && make -j$(nproc) && sudo make setuid)
then set the env
        ( cd ../ && . ./scripts/rip-environment )
run your existing configs.
         (machinekit   ---- then select your config)

Results, bugs queries etc should be addressed to < https://github.com/machinekit/machinekit-multicore/issues/10 >