Re: EMC problems

[Ray <rehenry-at-up.net>]

Fred Z 

We have found a couple downloads where the copy was not the same as the 
ftp site file.  Henkka at yty.net has a brief description of a program 
called checksum and a good checksum value to test your download against.  
I really think that this is an essential task for a file this big. 

(comments in)

On Friday 30 November 2001 02:24 am, Fred Z wrote:
> Thank you very much for that information, I will try that on monday when
> I return to the site.
>
> I should state at this point that I am extremely greatfull to those who
> have contributed there suggestions to my problems, they have all helped
> in one way or another.

This help is why we hang around here.  We need it also!

> Can I assume from your statement that when I run the EMC_Run from the
> icon, it uses the EMC.INI, and when I run the EMC_Generic from the icon,
> it uses the GENERIC.INI files and so on ???

Yep!  Usually but read on.

> Being involved with the virus(Windows), I tend to just use icons and not
> command lines.

Point and click is a common affliction.  Command lines do not take much 
more effort at the level we need you to use them.  

Click on the little house icon on the bottom bar or panel.  It will bring 
up an instance of kfm, the file manager.  I assume that you are running as 
root and you will be in the /root directory.   You can always see where 
you are in the file window.  Press the up arrow near the top bar of kfm 
and it will move you to /.  Now click on the usr directory icon then the 
emc directory icon.  Now you will display the correct directory for 
running the emc. It should show you a bunch of files like TkEemc and such. 
Hey, that's not so different.

Clicking on a text based file icon should show its contents in a window.  
Right clicking on a terminal or executable file and selecting open with 
should let you look at those as well.  Sometimes clicking on an unknown 
file type will get you an open with window much like you see in MS 
windows.  At that point you can always type kwrite and it will show you 
the file, even if it is a binary.

A file named *.run, where the star has the usual definition of any or all, 
is a start the emc file.  It one of these files about line 27 should be a 
variable which points that run file at an .ini file.  It will say 
something like 

INIFILE=ppmc.ini

except the file pointed to is the name of your ini file.  Perhaps it will 
be emc.ini.  This information is critical because that is the specific 
.ini file that you will need to edit to work with that .run file.  I've 
made this mistake before, changing one ini while running another.  I kept 
wondering why my changes weren't doing anything.

Now let's take one more little step away from the icons to running from a 
terminal because that way you can view the startup feedback and some of 
the run stuff.  The Kfm window that you got to this directory with needs 
to have the focus.  Kfm is the file browser and focus means that the top 
line is a different color than the background.  (Click on the top line to 
change focus to that window)  Now press and hold  <control> and press t on 
the keyboard.  This opens a new terminal so that you can enter text 
commands.  This keystroke, <control>t , opens that terminal in the 
directory shown in the kfm window.  This means that you should be ready to 
go to work entering text.

In the terminal window you will see something like

[ray-at-localhost emc]$  

The $ means that it is ready to accept a command.  the emc] just before it 
is the name of the directory the terminal is working in.  Type in 
./emc.run (dot slash) and it should immediately say something like file 
not found.  This is a good thing if it goes on with other stuff. It is 
this other stuff that will allow you to begin to debug your setup.

With the mouse, you can click and drag across the lines of the terminal 
window to highlight what you want.  But you can't press <control>c to 
capture them.  Just leave them highlighted and start kwrite, advanced 
editor, or text editor from the k menu in the bottom left corner and 
select copy from the menu or press <control>v in the editor and you should 
have a copy of the highlighted text from the terminal.  Copy that into 
your favorite email program and we can comment on what we see there. 

Hope this helps.  

Ray


> Also, can someone please explane to me how I get linux to create a log
> file of what it is doing, so that I can view/post this information if
> required.
>
>
> Regards
>
>
> Fred
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "William Scalione" <wscalione-at-nc.rr.com>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <emc-at-nist.gov>
> Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 02:12:07 -0500 (EST)
> Subject: Re: EMC problems
>
> > Fred,
> >
> > Don't give up yet, one of the experts will get you going (I'm not an
> > expert).
> > To run from the command line open a command console and type the
> > following, without the quotes of course.
> >
> > "cd /usr/local/emc"
> > (changes to the emc directory)
> >
> > "./emc.run"
> > (this will start emc. notice the leading dot slash)
> >
> > This will use the emc.ini file. If you were to type "./generic.run"
> > you would be using the generic.ini file. Running this way will show
> > any errors in the console window which you can report back with here.
> >
> > Not sure if the version you downloaded has the mem buffer problem
> > fixed or not.  Ray??
> >
> > Bill
> >
> > > I installed from the EMCBDI.IMG file downloaded from the linuxcnc
> > > site
> >
> > about
> >
> > > 3-4 weeks ago. I thought it would save me the effort of having to
> > > know anything about linux. How wrong I was.
> > >
> > > I am running everything from the icons, simply because I din't know
> > > how
> >
> > or
> >
> > > what to run from the command line.
> > >
> > > I have to admit that I have not wanted to know anything about linux,
> > > and
> >
> > may
> >
> > > in fact abandon the project if the I can't get this up & running
> > > soon. I
> >
> > will
> >
> > > simply have to tell the client to go buy something off the self.
> > >
> > > Regards
> > >
> > >
> > > Fred
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: "William Scalione" <wscalione-at-nc.rr.com>
> > > To: Multiple recipients of list <emc-at-nist.gov>
> > > Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 23:28:14 -0500 (EST)
> > > Subject: Re: EMC problems
> > >
> > > > > OK, I have managed to resolve one of my issues.
> > > > >
> > > > > The mouse turning into a fussy square.
> > > > >
> > > > > Resolution: Replaced video card.
> > > > > It would seem that whilst Linux reported the correct card during
> > > > > installation, it wasn't working properly. Subsequently, we
> > > > > replaced
> >
> > it
> >
> > > > and
> > > > it
> > > >
> > > > > is now functioning. Linux even correctly identified the monitor
> >
> > during
> >
> > > > the
> > > >
> > > > > instal process.
> > > > >
> > > > > EMC_General still freezes after altering the period=000016 to
> > > > > 000050. Although I haven't yet tried changing any other
> > > > > parameters as mention
> >
> > in
> >
> > > > > earlier postings.
> > > > >
> > > > > EMC_Mini still doesn't even start.
> > > > >
> > > > > I am not really bothered that these two groups won't run, as I
> > > > > am
> >
> > using
> >
> > > > the
> > > >
> > > > > EMC_Run, and it seems to be running not to bad all things
> > > > > considered.
> > > > >
> > > > > I am a virus expert(MCSE) and am having some problems coming to
> > > > > grips
> > > >
> > > > with
> > > >
> > > > > this Linux bug :-).
> > > >
> > > > Fred,
> > > >
> > > > What version of EMC are you using? Did you use the
> > > > BDI Disk? The early version of the BDI had a bad
> > > > problem with locking up but that has been fixed.
> > > >
> > > > When you start emc, where do you start it from?
> > > > do you click on an icon on the desktop or start from
> > > > a command line? By starting it from the command line
> > > > you will see some error messages if EMC does not
> > > > start.
> > > >
> > > > Bill
>
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