Installing LinuxCNC on Ubuntu

January-9-2016

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Introduction

I have LinuxCNC running on Ubuntu. I am using Ubuntu mainly because it plays better than Debian with my elo touch screen and seems more touch friendly in general. If you have no good reason to use Ubuntu it is much easier to install Debian and LinuxCNC at the same time using the Live/Install Image.

The steps on this page are mostly for my own reference, use with caution.

Installing Ubuntu

I am assuming the following steps will be performed on a windoze computer.

Download Ubuntu

LinuxCNC will run on any flavor of Ubuntu Precise 12.04 x86 (32-bit). You can find the images here: http://releases.ubuntu.com/precise/
If you are impatient here is a direct download link: http://releases.ubuntu.com/precise/ubuntu-12.04.5-desktop-i386.iso

Create a Bootable USB drive

Download Rufus, an excellent utility for creating bootable USB drives. It does not require installation: https://rufus.akeo.ie/

Select a 2Gb or larger USB thumb drive. All the information on it will be overwritten so use a new one or one you don’t care about. (After you are done with the USB drive you can reformat it and use it for other purposes. However I would suggest leaving Ubuntu on it and putting it on your key ring. It may come in handy at some point to recover files if your Windoze PC dies on you!)

Follow the instructions to create the bootable USB here: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows

Plug the USB into the target computer and boot from the USB drive. If you want to have both Windoze and Linux on the same PC it is best to install Windoze first.

You can run Ubuntu from the flash drive and get a feel for it before installing, but none of the changes you make or programs you install will be saved.

Install Ubuntu. If this installation is only for machine control enter a short, easy to type password when prompted.

Now, time to remove some of the Ubuntu bloatware to make it faster and more suitable for machine control.

Remove Bloatware

Ubuntu 12.04 comes with a lot of bloatware that is not necessary and can make it very slow on older hardware. I ran the following commands which made Ubuntu run much faster on my Intel D525MW and also made the appearance and work flow more to my taste.

1) Open a Terminal

Hitting ctr + alt + t is the quickest method, but you can also find the terminal under Accessories in the program list.

2) Replace Unity with Gnome Shell

First, get rid of the Unity desktop shell which is very resource intensive and IMHO ugly and unintuitive.

Install Gnome shell.
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Log out and choose “gnome classical no effects” and log back in.

Now uninstall Unity and Compiz since we don’t need them anymore.
sudo apt-get remove unity
sudo apt-get remove compiz

3) Replace Software Center with Synaptic

Uninstall the add ridden and confusing Ubuntu Software Center
sudo apt-get remove software-center
sudo apt-get autoremove software-center

Install synaptic
sudo apt-get install synaptic

4) Remove Ubuntu One

Ubuntu one was a cloud storage app similar Dropbox or Google Drive. I believe it is now defunct, but for some reason it was still using resources. Away with it.
sudo apt-get autoremove ubuntuone-client python-ubuntuone-control-panel

5) Remove Indicator-messages

This is something that appears in the upper bar of the desktop and lets you manage messaging and other social media stuff. Don’t foresee using that anywhere, much less on a machine control and it it takes up a good chunk of memory. Away with it too.
sudo apt-get autoremove indicator-messages
sudo apt-get autoremove telepathy-indicator

6) Remove Deja-dup

This is a backup tool. It might be useful but I don’t plan on using it so I removed it.
sudo apt-get autoremove deja-dup

7) Remove Zeitgeist

According to Wikipedia:
Zeitgeist is a software service which logs the users’s activities and events, anywhere from files opened to websites visited and conversations. It makes this information readily available for other applications to use in the form of timelines and statistics.

Nuff said. Lets have no more of that.
sudo apt-get autoremove zeitgeist-core

8) Remove Totem and Rhythmbox

Totem and Rhythmbox are multimedia players. It is up to you whether you want to keep them, they should not have much impact on performance but neither are they necessary.
sudo apt-get remove totem
sudo apt-get remove rhythmbox

9) Restart

It is probably a good idea to restart. To restart form terminal say
sudo shutdown -r now

If you want to shutdown (power off) replace the -r which stands for restart with an -h for halt.
sudo shutdown -h now

You could also shutdown graphically by going to the “gear” in the upper right of the screen and selecting Shutdown or physically by hitting the power button and selecting restart from the menu. Many choices . . .

Installing LinuxCNC

Run the following to bring the machine up to date with the latest packages in Ubuntu Precise.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Add the LinuxCNC Archive Signing Key to your apt keyring by running
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net --recv-key 3cb9fd148f374fef

NOTE: Several people have reported that they could not successfully add the signing key using the above command. If you have this problem see “Alternate ways to add Signing Key” at the bottom of this page.

Add a new apt source
sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://linuxcnc.org/ precise base 2.7-rtai"

Fetch the package list from linuxcnc.org.
sudo apt-get update

Install the RTAI kernel and modules by running
sudo apt-get install linux-image-3.4-9-rtai-686-pae rtai-modules-3.4-9-rtai-686-pae

If you want to be able to build LinuxCNC from source using the git repo, also run
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.4-9-rtai-686-pae

Booting into the RTAI kernel

At this point the RTAI kernel should be installed, but it will not be used by default so every time you boot you will have to specifically select it. We will fix that in a minute, but first lets make sure that Linux will boot successfully with the new kernel.

Restart the machine
sudo shutdown -r now

Right after the bios screen disappears press and hold the Shift Key to enter the GRUB bootloader, if the Ubuntu logo pops up you were too late.

Grub will present a list of boot options, navigate to
Previous Linux versions > Ubuntu, with Linux 3.4-9-rtai-686-pae

Hit enter and the machine should boot with the 3.4-9-rtai-686-pae RTAI kernel. To verify this run
uname -r

Making RTAI the default kernel

If all went well we should make Linux boot with the 3.4-9-rtai-686-pae kernel by default. To to this we edit /etc/default/grub

We need root permissions to edit this file, so if you are comfortable with the terminal say
sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

If you prefer a graphical approach open a root file browser by saying
sudo nautilus

and then browse to and open /etc/default/grub

Edit the GRUB_DEFAULT line to read
GRUB_DEFAULT="Previous Linux versions>Ubuntu, with Linux 3.4-9-rtai-686-pae"

Important The changes will not be registered unless you say
sudo update-grub

Restart and run uname -r again to make sure the machine booted with 3.4-9-rtai-686-pae

Install LinuxCNC

To install Run
sudo apt-get install linuxcnc

Alternate Methods

Installing as Run in Place

Running sudo apt-get install linuxcnc will install the latest LinuxCNC release, currently 2.7.9. However, there are times when it is necessary or desirable to have the very latest version of LinuxCNC. For example, Hazzy requires LinuxCNC 2.8, which has not yet been released. Although it is possible to install 2.8 from the build bot I find it much more convenient to build from source and use LinuxCNC as Run in Place. The advantage of Run in Place is that it is possible to have multiple versions installed at the same time and be able to switch between them as needed. Here is an excellent tutorial for and RIP installation: http://www.wiki.eusurplus.com/index.php?title=LinuxCNC_Run_In_Place

Adding a Signing Key

I don’t know much about these things, but a I have read that a firewall might cause adding the Signing Key to fail. If so maybe this line which forces it to use port 80 will work.
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keys.gnupg.net:80 --recv-key 3cb9fd148f374fef

If still no joy you could get the signing key manually here: http://pgp.mit.edu
Enter 0x3cb9fd148f374fef in the search field and it should return a link to the key. Open the link (there might be more than one, any should do) and copy everything but the heading at the top to a file and name it something, key.txt, I don’t think it maters.

Assuming the file is on the Desktop open a terminal and cd to the Desktop (cd Desktop). Then say
sudo apt-key add key.txt

That should work, in theory, but I have not tested it. Let me know if there is a better method, or better yet, edit this wiki to include it!

References

http://linuxcnc.org/docs/2.7/html/getting-started/getting-linuxcnc.html