Artykuły / Articles

Installation of Linumeric-LPT v1 is very simple and does not require specialist knowledge neither in the field of LinuxCNC nor in the field of the Linux system itself.

An internet connection is required for installation.

During installation, packages will be installed and various dependencies will be configured. The assumption is that a 64 bit Debian 10 buster with RT kernel from linuxCNC is installed on the machine before installation:

http://www.linuxcnc.org/iso/linuxcnc-2.8.0-buster.iso

If there are any problems with the installation, it may mean that some changes have been made to our system that block / do not allow for proper configuration. In this case, reinstall the system from linuxCNC on the computer.

To install Linumeric-LPT you will need the LINUMERIC_LPT_V1_DEB10.tar.gz package which must be downloaded and placed in the user's directory.

The archive must be unpacked. To do this, download the graphical archive manager. In the terminal, enter the command:

sudo apt-get install xarchiver

Unpack the package by right-clicking on it and selecting the Open with Xarchiver option.

After launching the manager, click Unpack files and choose the location of the user's directory

And click Unpack.

After unpacking, taken LINUMERIC_LPT_V1_DEB10.tar pack can be removed from your computer.

ATTENTION! There must be no spaces in the path to the LINUMERIC_LPT_V1_DEB10 directory.

Then enter the directory LINUMERIC_LPT_V1_DEB10.

Right-click on an empty background in the LINUMERIC_LPT_V1_DEB10 directory and select Open in Terminal.

Enter in the terminal

./install_linumeric_LPT

and press Enter.

The installation will begin. Enter the password and press enter.

After the installation is complete, the message Done will appear.

Close the terminal.

Turn off and restart the computer.

After restarting, type in the terminal:

sudo ls / dev / parport *

a list of parallel ports will appear. The two highest numbers are the ports reserved for linumeric-lpt. Now enter in the terminal accordingly:

sudo chmod 777 / dev / parport0

sudo chmod 777 / dev / parport1

where parport0 and parport1 are Linumeric LPT port numbers. If the computer has a physical LPT port, it will have the number 0 and the Linumeric-LPT ports are 1 and 2 respectively.

LinuxCNC version 2.9 with Linumeric-LPT support is already installed on the system.

After installation, a new icon will appear on the desktop - Linumeric-LPT configurator

Linumeric-LPT configurator is a simple application for testing and configuring Linumeric-LPT.

Additionally, 2 new parallel ports will appear in dev. If the computer has a hardware LPT port, it will have the lowest number, the added ports will have numbers higher for the addresses 0xC100 and OxC200.

To check it in the terminal, type the command:

sudo ls / dev / parport *

and press enter.

If the computer has a hardware LPT port, we should get the result:

/ dev / parport0 / dev / parport1 / dev / parport2

However, if the computer does not have parallel ports, the result should be:

/ dev / parport0 / dev / parport1

Still a little optimization. Because real-time processes use the processor cores in the order from the last one, if we have more than one core, it is worth excluding it from use for the system so that it remains completely available to the RT process. So we start the terminal and type the nproc command and hit enter. The number of processor cores will appear. We close the terminal and run Grub-customizer.

If it is missing, install it with the command:

sudo apt-get install grub-customicer

Grub-customizer will ask us for a password, so we type it and hit enter

Go to the general settings tab and enter which core to isolate. The isolcpus command is responsible for this. Note, the cores are numbered from 0, so if we have, for example, 4 cores, they have the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3 and then enter the number 3. If the processor has, for example, 4 cores and each core supports 2 threads, we have 8 cores and then we enter the last 2 numbers, i.e. 6.7.

Click the Save button to make the grub update. We close the program. Now you need to restart your computer.

After installation, the device should be tested. I invite you to read the article: Linumeric-LPT v1 test and configuration