Install RTAI-Patched Redhat 9.0 in VMWare 7.0

Wang, Hancheng, May 14th

, 2010

Abstraction

The low-frequency, high-speed camera system will be built based on linux system with RTAI.

Following this document, we can set up a real-time experimental platform to make the

SPCA5xx-based webcam work(see the ppt) properly and get familiar with linux.

Now, we choose Redhat 9.0 as the operation system, for which there are lots of reference

materials. We also adopt VMWare 7.0 to make the process much easier and to encourage us to try

whatever we want in this easy-recoverable system.

Keywords

RTAI, Redhat, Linux, VMWare, VMWare tools, kernel, patch, update, 2.4.20-8

Procedures

In this part, we will learn to set up the system by 5 steps (click to jump to the part you care about

in this document):

1. Install VMWare 7.0;

2. Install Redhat 9.0;

3. Install VMWare tools for Redhat 9.0;

4. Update Redhat from 2.4.20-8 to 2.4.27;

5. Patch RTAI to the kernel.

1. Install VMWare 7.0

a). Purchase and download a copy of VMWare 7.0 from its official website, VMWare 7.0

download, or get it from anywhere you can(You know what I mean. I wont mention this

again for any other commercial software.).

b). Open the install program, and you will see the graphic interface below

Fig. 1 The starting interface for VMWare Setup

c). Follow its instruction and use its default setting(You can specify where to install it, or what

plugins to include with. These wont affect our further use).

2. Install Redhat 9.0

a). Download all three .iso files for Redhat 9.0 installation: shrike-i386-disc1.iso,

shrike-i386-disc2.iso, shrike-i386-disc3.iso. P2P-based download tools, such as Thunder, are

required to get them successfully.

b). Open the VMWare Workstation and press ctrl + n to create a new virtual machine.

c). Choose Custom(advanced) and continue.

Fig. 2 The wizard interface for creating a new virtual machine in VMWare 7.0

d). For Hardware compatibility, use the default Workstation 6.5-7.0.

e). Choose Installer disc image file (iso): and browse to locate your shrike-i386-disc1.iso.

Fig. 3 Set the source for install Redhat 9.0

f). For Guest operation system, select Linux; for Version, select Red Hat Linux

g). Name your virtual machine and place it.

Fig. 4 Name the virtual machine and place it

h). Choose the number of processors and cores according your computer.

i). Allocate memory to the virtual machine according to your computer.

Fig. 5 Memory for the virtual machine

j). Keep clicking next to finish this wizard.

k). Now we come to the same install interface of Redhat 9.0 as for a physical machine. Skip

the CD test unless youd like to have a try.

Fig. 6 Welcome interface for Redhat 9.0 installation

l).Wait for a while until the graphic interface appears. Then click next until you see the

scene below. Dont change the types of mouse or keyboard even if they are different from

your hardware as signals delivered to Redhat 9.0 are changed by VMWare. English is also

preferred.

Fig. 7 Choose installation type

m). For Installation type, choose Custom so that we can specify the file system ourselves.

n). For Disk partition setup, select Manually partition with Disk Druid. Then, click yes

for the warning.

o). Click the free space and New a root partition as below.

Fig. 8 Create a root partition

p). Create a swap partition which will be us4ed for Linux as the virtual memory for Windows.

This is not required, but it do speed up the system.

Fig. 9 Create the swap partition

Now we can see the picture below.

Fig. 10 Final partition situation

q). Configure the system as you wish. Dont forget to choose Chinese support and some

necessary development tools.

r). Just drink a cup of tea, walk around for a while, or take a shower. Then youll see a

window come up.

Fig. 11 Change CD Hint Window

Then we change the .iso file by right click the virtual machine and left click setting on the

bottom.

Fig. 12 Go to the settings of virtual machine

Change the .iso file by browsing and mark Connected.

Fig. 13 Change the .iso file for installation

s). Change .iso for another time when being asked to. Wait for several minutes, click several

next, then you will have a bright new Redhat 9.0 installed in your VMWare 7.0!

3. Install VMWare tools for Redhat 9.0

After finish step 2, we get a fresh Redhat 9.0. The first time you open it, you will be asked to

create a normal user account. Dont try to register it on internet as the register server has

stopped for ages. Now, what we have is a operating system which cant communicate with

host system , log on the internet, nor present high resolution. To solve these problems, we

have to install VMWare tools.

a). Log in the system as root. Click VMInstall VMWare Tools as below.

Fig. 14 Start to install VMWare Tools

b). Press ctrl + alt + F1(press F1 first and press alt + ctrl before releasing F1), and

type commands as following.

Fig. 15 Install VMWare Tools in commandline

c). Keep pressing enter to adopt the default settings and install the tools.

d). Restart the virtual machine after VMWare tools are installed. Now, you can move your

mouse from Redhat 9.0 to the host system directly without press ctrl + alt, or take files from

Redhat 9.0 to the host system directly by drag and drop. Also, the internet becomes available,

and the system owns a higher resolution.

4. Update Redhat from 2.4.20-8 to 2.4.27

Why do we need to update the kernel? It is because Redhat 9.0 modifies the kernel from

standard 2.4.20 to its own 2.4.20-8 which does not support some standard-version-aimed

programs, such as RTAI and the driver for SPCA5xx.

a) Download the kernel 2.4.27 from www.kernel.org, which I use is linux-2.4.27.tar.bz2

b) cp linux-2.4.27-tar.bz2 /usr/src

c) tar jxvf linux-2.4.27.tar.bz2

d) ln linux-2.4.27 linux -s

e) cd linux

f) make mrproper (not required for first time kernel compilation)

g) cp /boot/config-2.4.20-8 .config (you may take a snapshot here or in the next step)

h) make menuconfig

i. This is the most important part. Be sure to build everything needed into the kernel,

instead of compiling them as modules (If you cannot find some modules listed

below, dont worry. Just read the configuration, select what you think is useful, and

then save it and continue, as its easy to recover the system from snapshots taken

before).

ii. The modules included in original kernel of Redhat Linux 9.0 are:

1. parport_pc

2. lp

3. parport

4. autofs

5. e100

6. e1000

7. ipt_REJECT

8. iptable_filter

9. ip_tables

10. sg

11. sr_mod

12. microcode

13. ide-scsi

14. scsi_mod

15. ide_cd

16. cdrom

17. keybdev

18. mousedev

19. hid

20. input

21. usb-uhci

22. ehci-hcd

23. usbcore

24. ext3

25. jbd

i) make dep

j) make clean

k) make bzImage

l) make modules

m) make modules_install

n) if you meet errors like No module BusLogic found for kernel 2.4.27, then do

i)cp /usr/src/linux-2.4.27/drivers/scsi/BusLogic.o /lib/modules/2.4.27/kernel/drivers/scsi

ii)make modules_install

o) cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27

p) cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.4.27

q) mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.4.27.img 2.4.27

r) cd /boot

s) rm -f System.map vmlinuz

t) ln -s System.map-2.4.27 System.map

u) ln -s vmlinuz-2.4.27 vmlinuz

v) vim /boot/grub/grub.conf (revise the file as below, i.e., add last four lines):

default=0

timeout=0

splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

password md5 $1$4xbn4JKI$q9haaCOWymqjQAvhUmFKp1

title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)

root (hd0,0)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ hdc=ide-scsi

initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.20-8.img

title Red Hat Linux (2.4.27+RTAI)

root (hd0,0)

kernel /boot/ vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1

initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.27.img

w) Reboot the machine, at GRUB menu, select the Red Hat (2.4.27+RTAI). If the kernel is

properly configured, the system could be normally booted.

5. Patch RTAI to the kernel

a) Download the RTAI 3.1 package from www.rtai.org, which is rtai-3.1.tar.bz2

b) Assume we store this file rtai-3.1.tar.bz2 in /home/

c) Extract files

i. bzip2 d rtai-3.1.tar.bz2

ii. tar xvf rtai-3.1.tar

d) Patch Kernel 2.4.27 with RTAI patch 2.4.27

i. cd /usr/src/linux

ii. patch p1 < /home/rtai-3.1/rtai-core/arch/i386/patches/hal16-2.4.27.patch

e) Rebuild the kernel with the 2.4.27 patch

i. make menuconfig

1. Be sure to disable Set version information on all module symbols

2. Be sure to enable "Adeos support" on "General setup"

3. Be sure to disable "Compile the kernel with frame pointers" on "Kernel

hacking"

ii. make dep

iii. make clean

iv. make bzImage

v. make modules

vi. make modules_install

vii. mkinitrd /boot/initrd-2.4.27-adeos 2.4.27-adeos

viii. cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/bzImage-2.4.27

ix. cp /usr/src/linux/System.map /boot/System.map-2.4.27

x. (Reboot the machine, and reinstall vmware-tools as you have updated the kernel)

f) Configure the RTAI

i. cd /home

ii. mkdir rtai-install

iii. cd rtai-install

iv. make f /home/rtai-3.1/makefile srctree=/home/rtai-3.1/ menuconfig

1. Try to exclude the Comedi support over LXRT in Add-ons

2. Exclude the RTAI Lab and RTAI Simulator if you dont have those

supporting files installed.

3. Try to exclude the LTT supports and Watchdog support if you have such

function built in the kernel.

g) Install RTAI-3.1

i. cd /home/rtai-install

ii. make install

iii. Add the installation directory into the shell PATH variable:

1. Revise the file /root/.bash_profile, add: PATH=$PATH:/usr/realtime/bin

h) Test RTAI-3.1

i. cd /usr/realtime/testuite/kern/latency

ii. ./run (ctrl+c to stop the calibration)

1. You can find the largest latency of our labs infrastructure computer is a little

more than 3000ns (3x10-6

s)

Reference

1. Xu, Kai, Robot Control System References_version 1.2, ARMA Lab, Columbia University,

Sep, 2008.

2. http://www.rtai.org/

3. http://www.anqn.com/article/d/gjyy/2009-04-24/a09109370.shtml

4. http://blog.csdn.net/huangsihua/archive/2009/04/14/4071664.aspx

5. http://blog.csdn.net/wasid/archive/2005/08/03/445320.aspx

Afterword

This document is only for your interest to get aware of the process to build up a

RTAI-patched Redhat 9.0 in VMWare Station 7.0. For your ease, you can get a copy of .vmdk file

directly and import it into your VMWare Workstation. Then its done. Just have fun with it!