RtaiInstall - rmu75/linuxcnc-wiki GitHub Wiki

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The Real-Time Application Interface is a hard real-time extension to the Linux kernel, contributed in accordance with the Free Software guidelines. It provides the features of an industrial-grade RTOS, seamlessly accessible from the powerful and sophisticated GNU/Linux environment.

It is best to read the documentation from RTAI.org, but here are a few directions to get the job done.

There are a few steps you need to follow in order to install RTAI on your linux: (for some real handholding see RtaiSteps)

1. Get a kernel source from http://www.kernel.org . For example 2.4.21(http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/linux-2.4.21.tar.bz2)
   
   

2. Get a RTAI-package from http://www.rtai.org . For example RTAI-3.1 (http://download.gna.org/rtai/stable/v3/rtai-3.1.tar.bz2)
   
   

3. Unpack the kernel source:
   
       # cd /usr/src
       # tar xvjf linux-2.4.21.tar.bz2
       # ln -s linux-2.4.21 linux
   
   

4. Unpack RTAI to /usr/src/rtai-3.1:
   
       # tar xvjf rtai-3.1.tar.bz2
       # ln -s rtai-3.1 rtai
   
   

5. Patch the kernel (this will modify the kernel source to contain the RTAI-extensions):
   
       # cd /usr/src/linux
       # patch -p1 < ../rtai/rtai-core/arch/i386/patches/hal12-2.4.21.patch
   
   

6. Configure the kernel:
   
       # make menuconfig
   
       Make sure that
       - "Adeos" is selected
       - "Loadable module support -> Set version information on all module symbols" is disabled
       - Disable all Power Management options.
   
   

7. Compile the kernel:
   

    # make dep
    # make bzImage
    # make modules
    # make modules_install

8. Install the kernel:
   

    # cd /usr/src/linux
    # cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.21-adeos
    # cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.4.21-adeos

9. Modify LILO or GRUB for the new kernel

10. After the kernel is compiled and installed successfully, compile RTAI:
    

    # cd /usr/src/rtai
    # make menuconfig
    # make
    # make install

11. If no errors occured, reboot now, select the new kernel from the GRUB/LILO menu.
    

12. To test RTAI:
    

    # cd /usr/realtime/testsuite/kern/latency/
    # ./run