I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it takes
several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be. I
realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I would
just like to know what others think of the situation.
i would have to agree … it took three days for tech support to
respond initially to my question. that was over a week ago and i still
haven’t solved my problem… if fact im feeling alot of blame
diplacement rather than acutal problem solving. im trying to simply
boot rtos off of compact flash. i can boot my CF with dos,linux and
bsd but it locks up when i try to boot rtos… so far the best answer
that ive gotten equates to , although rtos is meant to be embedable
the released version is only supposed to work on desktop systems and
if i wanted to embed my system on CF i would have employ the services
of a specialist third party systems company… after sending back some
rather pointed emails to tech support i have gotten a little closer to
the embedding minimal photon question but still no solution on the
booting problem.
ive basicly got another 1 1/2 weeks to make this work or i will
essensally be fired for my decision to use qnx on this project. i have
to say that if this happens i will be donating a great deal of my new
spare time to the creation and building of a QNX real truths web page
to dispell the myths of QNX and encourage developers to be very
cautious when making any decision to go with QNX
this may sound flame like, but the way i feel about it if i go down
because i actually beleived the QNX marketing information im going
down leaving a rather large crater behind…
vince
iOn Fri, 01 Dec 2000 11:25:40 -0800, Bruce Davis
<bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> wrote:
I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it takes
several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be. I
realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I would
just like to know what others think of the situation.
Hello Bruce,
The QDN newsgroups are available to the entire QNX community to discuss
issues, ask questions, throw flames 
, etc. Although many of us monitor
and respond in this forum, it is intended to be a community supported forum.
There are a number of support options available that have guaranteed
response times (see the QDN.qnx.com for details).
-Deb
“Bruce Davis” <bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> wrote in message
news:3A27FB34.2E24A78A@boeing.com…
I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it takes
several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be. I
realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I would
just like to know what others think of the situation.
“Bruce Davis” <bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> wrote in message
news:3A27FB34.2E24A78A@boeing.com…
| I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
| the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
| Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
| from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
| timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it takes
| several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
| questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be. I
| realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
| an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I would
| just like to know what others think of the situation.
QNX tech support in general has always been way above what I’ve experienced
from other companies. Sometimes you can get answers to your questions in
minutes, but sometimes it may take a couple of days. Generally problems are
reviewed by those who are actually working on the part of the O.S. in question
so when you do get an answer it’s definitive- there’s not a lot of wild goose
chases, and “are you sure it’s plugged in” type of answers. They generally
assume you have your poop in a group before asking for help. This support is
free, which makes it the best deal in town (or out of town, for that matter).
My only concern is that as the newbie community grows, there will be more and
more postings with groupless poop, and it will become harder for the
professional developers (with paid development seats) to “stand out in the
crowd” so to speak. Time will tell, I suppose, but for now I’m pleased with
the level of support I’m receiving.
-Warren
I’ve reviewed the many email correspondence between our tech support staff
and yourself, and from what I understand, you are trying to install the QNX
RTP from CD to Flash. It should be clear that the QNX RTP is a realtime
platform, a development environment, so what you are attempting is not as
straight forward as installing to flash. QNX is an embeddable OS, but there
are steps to take it from the host OS (as it comes as part of the RTP), to a
runtime environment appropriate for your target (flash).
Regardless, in an effort to try and help you accomplish installing QNX onto
your flash, we have made several suggestions, the latest of which includes:
- sending you sample build files to modify for your configuration, etc.
- re-work your hardware so that your compact flash is the primary master
device, so that this configuration will be compatible with our boot loader, - investigate the settings on the BIOS to select which device to boot from
Based on this message, it would seem that these suggestions did not work for
you.
Perhaps it might be better to continue correspondence with tech support
staff, so that we can work together to accomplish embedding QNX onto your
flash to meet your deadlines.
-Deb
“smeghead” <lab-101@usa.net> wrote in message
news:5akl2t4u31197igccg627g1btrs0kmnpcr@4ax.com…
i would have to agree … it took three days for tech support to
respond initially to my question. that was over a week ago and i still
haven’t solved my problem… if fact im feeling alot of blame
diplacement rather than acutal problem solving. im trying to simply
boot rtos off of compact flash. i can boot my CF with dos,linux and
bsd but it locks up when i try to boot rtos… so far the best answer
that ive gotten equates to , although rtos is meant to be embedable
the released version is only supposed to work on desktop systems and
if i wanted to embed my system on CF i would have employ the services
of a specialist third party systems company… after sending back some
rather pointed emails to tech support i have gotten a little closer to
the embedding minimal photon question but still no solution on the
booting problem.
ive basicly got another 1 1/2 weeks to make this work or i will
essensally be fired for my decision to use qnx on this project. i have
to say that if this happens i will be donating a great deal of my new
spare time to the creation and building of a QNX real truths web page
to dispell the myths of QNX and encourage developers to be very
cautious when making any decision to go with QNX
this may sound flame like, but the way i feel about it if i go down
because i actually beleived the QNX marketing information im going
down leaving a rather large crater behind…
vince
iOn Fri, 01 Dec 2000 11:25:40 -0800, Bruce Davis
bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> > wrote:I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it takes
several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be. I
realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I would
just like to know what others think of the situation.
On Mon, 4 Dec 2000 12:12:56 -0500, “Debbie Kane” <debbie@qnx.com>
wrote:
I’ve reviewed the many email correspondence between our tech support staff
and yourself, and from what I understand, you are trying to install the QNX
RTP from CD to Flash. It should be clear that the QNX RTP is a realtime
platform, a development environment, so what you are attempting is not as
straight forward as installing to flash. QNX is an embeddable OS, but there
are steps to take it from the host OS (as it comes as part of the RTP), to a
runtime environment appropriate for your target (flash).ahh here comes the blame displacement…
this should be interesting…
Regardless, in an effort to try and help you accomplish installing QNX onto
your flash, we have made several suggestions, the latest of which includes:
- sending you sample build files to modify for your configuration, etc.
done… you have all the build files im using…
- re-work your hardware so that your compact flash is the primary master
device, so that this configuration will be compatible with our boot loader,
so you want all the venders of pc-104 embedded pc’s to rework their
hardware (you didn’t happen to ever work at micro$oft did you?) this
is Totally unreasonable… the de-facto standard for onboard compact
flash is that it is put on the secondary master… it is nothing i can
change other than going to an addon pc-104 compact flash interface
module. i which case i would just go with a ide flash drive…
- investigate the settings on the BIOS to select which device to boot from
i have done this also and the standard is if there is nothing in the
primary master the bios defaults to the secondary master . so i dont
see that this is even an issue…
Based on this message, it would seem that these suggestions did not work for
you.
Perhaps it might be better to continue correspondence with tech support
staff, so that we can work together to accomplish embedding QNX onto your
flash to meet your deadlines.
what correspondence… it takes 2 days to get any response from tech
support…
even after all this sh|7 ive gone through i still think that
photon/neutrino is a superior product over linux an others, its just
that qnx really has to get it together in the embedding and tech
support department…
vince
-Deb
“smeghead” <> lab-101@usa.net> > wrote in message
news:> 5akl2t4u31197igccg627g1btrs0kmnpcr@4ax.com> …
i would have to agree … it took three days for tech support to
respond initially to my question. that was over a week ago and i still
haven’t solved my problem… if fact im feeling alot of blame
diplacement rather than acutal problem solving. im trying to simply
boot rtos off of compact flash. i can boot my CF with dos,linux and
bsd but it locks up when i try to boot rtos… so far the best answer
that ive gotten equates to , although rtos is meant to be embedable
the released version is only supposed to work on desktop systems and
if i wanted to embed my system on CF i would have employ the services
of a specialist third party systems company… after sending back some
rather pointed emails to tech support i have gotten a little closer to
the embedding minimal photon question but still no solution on the
booting problem.
ive basicly got another 1 1/2 weeks to make this work or i will
essensally be fired for my decision to use qnx on this project. i have
to say that if this happens i will be donating a great deal of my new
spare time to the creation and building of a QNX real truths web page
to dispell the myths of QNX and encourage developers to be very
cautious when making any decision to go with QNX
this may sound flame like, but the way i feel about it if i go down
because i actually beleived the QNX marketing information im going
down leaving a rather large crater behind…
vince
iOn Fri, 01 Dec 2000 11:25:40 -0800, Bruce Davis
bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> > wrote:I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it takes
several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be. I
realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I would
just like to know what others think of the situation.
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve posted many times in the past of this newsgroup
when having problems. Every time I’ve posted I’ve gotten a reply back
usually in a day or at the most a few days. Also every time I have posted
someone knowledgeable has responded and solved the problem. If a project has
come down to a crunch of a week and can’t solve a problem because of lack of
expertice in solving that problem or you have never done it before maybe the
project schedule should be revised. Maybe its a bit too optimistic or
unrealistic in the first place, especially considering this is a new
product.
Jon
Warren Peece <warren@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:90ghqe$5m$1@inn.qnx.com…
“Bruce Davis” <> bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> > wrote in message
news:> 3A27FB34.2E24A78A@boeing.com> …
| I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
| the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
| Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
| from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
| timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it takes
| several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
| questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be. I
| realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
| an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I would
| just like to know what others think of the situation.QNX tech support in general has always been way above what I’ve
experienced
from other companies. Sometimes you can get answers to your questions in
minutes, but sometimes it may take a couple of days. Generally problems
are
reviewed by those who are actually working on the part of the O.S. in
question
so when you do get an answer it’s definitive- there’s not a lot of wild
goose
chases, and “are you sure it’s plugged in” type of answers. They
generally
assume you have your poop in a group before asking for help. This support
is
free, which makes it the best deal in town (or out of town, for that
matter).
My only concern is that as the newbie community grows, there will be more
and
more postings with groupless poop, and it will become harder for the
professional developers (with paid development seats) to “stand out in the
crowd” so to speak. Time will tell, I suppose, but for now I’m pleased
with
the level of support I’m receiving.-Warren
Thanks for your response. As I understand it there will be an option to buy
multiple incident support plans available, but this is not yet finalized? If it
is, I would like
the details of how to buy (part numbers, prices, any options, etc). I need to
be able to buy the plan through my purchasing department, not over the web using
a credit card.
BTW, I am certainly not “flaming” anyone here. I have been a QNX customer for
some years, and am a big fan of your product. I am going through some
withdrawals now that the phone support is gone, though…
Debbie Kane wrote:
Hello Bruce,
The QDN newsgroups are available to the entire QNX community to discuss
issues, ask questions, throw flames >
and respond in this forum, it is intended to be a community supported forum.There are a number of support options available that have guaranteed
response times (see the QDN.qnx.com for details).-Deb
“Bruce Davis” <> bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> > wrote in message
news:> 3A27FB34.2E24A78A@boeing.com> …
I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it takes
several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be. I
realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I would
just like to know what others think of the situation.
“vince” <vgeisler@engineer.com> wrote in message
news:n4pn2t06690mcfsl94ugklmrq8tfburpa3@4ax.com…
On Mon, 4 Dec 2000 12:12:56 -0500, “Debbie Kane” <> debbie@qnx.com
wrote:I’ve reviewed the many email correspondence between our tech support
staff
and yourself, and from what I understand, you are trying to install the
QNX
RTP from CD to Flash. It should be clear that the QNX RTP is a realtime
platform, a development environment, so what you are attempting is not as
straight forward as installing to flash. QNX is an embeddable OS, but
there
are steps to take it from the host OS (as it comes as part of the RTP),
to a
runtime environment appropriate for your target (flash).ahh here comes the blame displacement…
this should be interesting…
Show of hands; how many developers reading the qdn.* groups thought
that RtP itself was designed to be embeddable ? This isn’t meant as a
flame,
just curious.
[…]
even after all this sh|7 ive gone through i still think that
photon/neutrino is a superior product over linux an others, its just
that qnx really has to get it together in the embedding and tech
support department…
Who did you use for embedded linux tech support ? Were they free ?
Rennie
[none QSSL response]
smeghead wrote:
[…]
ive basicly got another 1 1/2 weeks to make this work or i will
essensally be fired for my decision to use qnx on this project. i have
This sounds very drastic. That says more about your employer than QNX’s
tech support. Let’s say you resolve this particular problem in that time
period. Then I fear there will soon be another similar threat lurking.
to say that if this happens i will be donating a great deal of my new
spare time to the creation and building of a QNX real truths web page
to dispell the myths of QNX and encourage developers to be very
cautious when making any decision to go with QNX
To me this sounds more like personal revenge than an attempt to give the
community objective food for thought when choosing an OS. But I take it
you’re saying this in a state of frustration and that you will think
otherwise when you clearmindedly look back and review the facts and
events.
this may sound flame like, but the way i feel about it if i go down
because i actually beleived the QNX marketing information im going
down leaving a rather large crater behind…vince
“Jonathan Richardson” <jrichard@nospam.ise.bc.ca> wrote in message
news:90gphf$4ik$1@inn.qnx.com…
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve posted many times in the past of this newsgroup
when having problems. Every time I’ve posted I’ve gotten a reply back
usually in a day or at the most a few days. Also every time I have posted
someone knowledgeable has responded and solved the problem. If a project
has
come down to a crunch of a week and can’t solve a problem because of lack
of
expertice in solving that problem or you have never done it before maybe
the
project schedule should be revised. Maybe its a bit too optimistic or
unrealistic in the first place, especially considering this is a new
product.
I think it as to do with attitude as well. I find I usually get better
response when i use a positive attitude. We are all programmers
and our jobs is to fix problem, find and implement solutions.
Gotta deal with that. Bitching at each other usually doesn’t
get you far in the long-run.
I have a tendency to blame myself instead of other,
because i’m the only one I hold responsible for my choices.
Jon
Warren Peece <> warren@nospam.com> > wrote in message
news:90ghqe$5m$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
“Bruce Davis” <> bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> > wrote in message
news:> 3A27FB34.2E24A78A@boeing.com> …
| I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
| the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
| Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
| from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
| timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it
takes
| several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
| questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be.
I
| realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
| an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I
would
| just like to know what others think of the situation.QNX tech support in general has always been way above what I’ve
experienced
from other companies. Sometimes you can get answers to your questions
in
minutes, but sometimes it may take a couple of days. Generally problems
are
reviewed by those who are actually working on the part of the O.S. in
question
so when you do get an answer it’s definitive- there’s not a lot of wild
goose
chases, and “are you sure it’s plugged in” type of answers. They
generally
assume you have your poop in a group before asking for help. This
support
is
free, which makes it the best deal in town (or out of town, for that
matter).
My only concern is that as the newbie community grows, there will be
more
and
more postings with groupless poop, and it will become harder for the
professional developers (with paid development seats) to “stand out in
the
crowd” so to speak. Time will tell, I suppose, but for now I’m pleased
with
the level of support I’m receiving.-Warren
\
vince <vgeisler@engineer.com> wrote:
On Mon, 4 Dec 2000 12:12:56 -0500, “Debbie Kane” <> debbie@qnx.com
wrote:I’ve reviewed the many email correspondence between our tech support staff
and yourself, and from what I understand, you are trying to install the QNX
RTP from CD to Flash. It should be clear that the QNX RTP is a realtime
platform, a development environment, so what you are attempting is not as
straight forward as installing to flash. QNX is an embeddable OS, but there
are steps to take it from the host OS (as it comes as part of the RTP), to a
runtime environment appropriate for your target (flash).ahh here comes the blame displacement…
this should be interesting…Regardless, in an effort to try and help you accomplish installing QNX onto
your flash, we have made several suggestions, the latest of which includes:
sending you sample build files to modify for your configuration, etc.
done… you have all the build files im using…re-work your hardware so that your compact flash is the primary master
device, so that this configuration will be compatible with our boot loader,so you want all the venders of pc-104 embedded pc’s to rework their
hardware (you didn’t happen to ever work at micro$oft did you?) this
is Totally unreasonable… the de-facto standard for onboard compact
flash is that it is put on the secondary master… it is nothing i can
change other than going to an addon pc-104 compact flash interface
module. i which case i would just go with a ide flash drive…
3) investigate the settings on the BIOS to select which device to boot from
i have done this also and the standard is if there is nothing in the
primary master the bios defaults to the secondary master . so i dont
see that this is even an issue…
Hello Vince,
THE SITUATION
The problem you are having is that you were trying to install the full
QNX RTP development system onto your compact flash… This is not supported.
The QNX RTP (in its current form) can be installed(and hence booted from) to
a primary EIDE drive. When you want to run the QNX RTP from compact flash,
you are required to manually install the s/w which you will be
using. YOU have to identify all of the pieces you wish to include in
your runtime target system. Once this is accomplished you also need to create
a build image which will allow your system to boot and get access to those
pieces. The boot image will be placed on your compact flash, with a file
system containing those pieces which you will need at runtime, this includes
starting the correct driver(with the correct switches) to get access to this file
system. THIS IS SUPPORTED. ie. your BIOS supports booting from the compact
flash, and if the flash is set-up correctly, our eide driver supports compact
flash devices which present an eide interface, then it should work.
YOUR PERCEPTION
The QNX tech support team who you have been dealing with have told you this and
from reviewing the conversations which have transpired, you understand this
but simply don’t agree with it. Unfortunately, you equate this with bad answer/
bad product/bad support, this is unfortunate. The support team is here to help
you understand the intricacies of the product, and offer suggestions to aid your
product development, it is up to you to implement these suggestions. Embedding
the QNX RTP is not a trivial task, and there is no one simple answer, especially
with the myriad of custom h/w available today.
THE SOLUTION
You have to mount your compact flash, and initialize it(dinit).
Then use mkifs to create a bootable image which will boot from your compact
flash and copy it to the /.boot file which was created by the dinit procedure.
You also will copy those files which you will need to run your application(which
is photon based so you will need to copy over those pieces which will allow
you to set up a photon environment). This includes a start-up script to
start photon…
Since the compact flash presents itself with an eide interface, you will be
able to use the devb-eide driver to get access to it and since the first file
on the compact flash is the bootable image, the BIOS should be able to find it
and boot from it.
Now you are ready to boot from the secondary compact flash… Does this work?
If not, you can add verbosity to procnto and see what is happening on the screen.
If you don’t see anything on the screen, there may be a problem with the BIOS and
it really is not set-up properly to boot from the flash device. If you do see
some activity and it hangs at the devb-eide driver, maybe the switches you are
using are wrong. This is something you may have to experiment with…
I have included a technote on embedding Photon2.0(prepared by randy, thanks
which we have sent to you, for those who have been following this thread to have.
This technote does not tell you how to create an image using mkifs, the QNX
Neutrino(QNX Realtime Platform) Operating System–>Building Embedded Systems
online docs address this.
Regards,
Chris
Team Lead QNX Technical Support
Embedding Photon ver 2.0
This technote will describe the steps involved in embedding photon for use
on an embedded device.
The following is assumed:
- You have installed QNX Realtime Platform on a PC
- You have played a little bit with Photon
The Goal
Build a photon system with the following minimal capabilities:
- scalable truetype fonts … the smallest set available that does
normal, bold, italic and bolditalic - just the minimum needed to run the graphics driver for a RageLT chipset
- an optional mouse/keyboard… we must be able to start and stop this
service as we need to. - an optional Window manager… we must be able to start and stop this
service as we need to.
Procedure
Embedding photon requires analyzing a number of things.
A required binaries
B required libraries (.so’s)
C required fonts
D putting it all together
A. Required binaries
The first step involves looking at a full system.
Run photon on your PC.
Look at the output of the ‘pidin arg’ command.
Here’s what they are on my Gateway Laptop.
I cropped it to only show the photon specific components:
pidin ar
pid Arguments
3620894 Photon
3665951 fontsleuth -d /usr/photon/font_repository
3727406 pwm
3657775 /usr/photon/bin/phfontFA -d /usr/photon/font_repository -j -s 300k
3698736 io-graphics -g1024x768x32 -dldevg-rage.so -I0 -d0x1002,0x4c42
3715121 devi-hirun kbd fd -d/dev/kbd ps2 kb -2
3772466 shelf
3809331 bkgdmgr
3809332 wmswitch
3809336 Xphoton -once
3809337 gtwm
Of the above programs running, I only need a few of them:
Photon
phfontFA (see discussion of fonts below)
io-graphics
pwm (only if I want window management)
devi-hirun (only if I want a mouse or keyboard (or touchscreen))
The others are completely optional for most embedded systems:
fontsleuth: used to auto install fonts
shelf: for the “quick launch” of applications… it creates a shelf
(default on right side of screen) of apps for launching.
bkgdmgr: for drawing a background picture on the screen
wmswitch: works with pwm to handle alt-tab switching between apps
Xphoton: for running X apps
gtwm: Xphoton window manager
Save the arguments list for your system in a file. We’ll need that output
later.
B. Required libraries
On my system I only want the following components:
Photon
phfontFA (or equivalent font manager … see font discussion below)
io-graphics
pwm
devi-hirun
Look at the output of the ‘pidin mem’ command.
1048603 1 /photon/bin/Photon 10r RECEIVE 64K 120K 8192(516K)*
ldqnx.so.1 @b0300000 300K 12K
1302557 1 usr/photon/bin/pwm 10o RECEIVE 116K 56K 8192(516K)*
ldqnx.so.1 @b0300000 300K 12K
libph.so.1 @b034e000 1220K 48K
libphrender.so.1 @b048b000 232K 8192
1085470 1 hoton/bin/phfontFA 12r RECEIVE 284K 880K 12K(516K)*
ldqnx.so.1 @b0300000 300K 12K
/dev/mem @40100000 ( 0) 32K
1122335 1 io-graphics 12r REPLY 144K 148K 8192(516K)*
ldqnx.so.1 @b0300000 300K 12K
libph.so.1 @b034e000 1220K 48K
libphrender.so.1 @b048b000 232K 8192
devg-rage.so @b04c7000 24K 4096
libffb.so.1 @b04ce000 28K 4096
libdisputil.so.1 @b04d6000 24K 4096
/dev/mem @40100000 ( 0) 32K
/dev/mem @40108000 ( 0) 4096
/dev/mem @40109000 ( 4000) 64K
/dev/mem @40119000 ( 0) 8192K
/dev/mem @40919000 (fd7ff000) 4096
/dev/mem @4091a000 ( 0) 2304K
1138720 1 o/x86/o/devi-hirun 15o RECEIVE 52K 24K 8192(516K)*
1138720 2 o/x86/o/devi-hirun 10o REPLY 52K 24K 4096(132K)
1138720 3 o/x86/o/devi-hirun 12o SIGWAITINFO 52K 24K 4096(132K)
1138720 4 o/x86/o/devi-hirun 15o RECEIVE 52K 24K 4096(132K)
ldqnx.so.1 @b0300000 300K 12K
libph.so.1 @b034e000 1220K 48K
libphrender.so.1 @b048b000 232K 8192
This tells me every library that I need available to my embedded system.
My laptop has a Rage video chipset (devg-rage.so).
So I will need the following libs (at a minimum):
ldqnx.so.1
libph.so.1
libphrender.so.1
devg-rage.so
libffb.so.1
libdisputil.so.1
C. Required fonts
Now let’s look at fonts.
Sometimes an application will expect a specific font, and will code directly
to that font. If that is the case you will need to explicitly include every
font that your application absolutely requires.
If you standardize on a certain family/style of fonts or if you don’t
necessarily care what exact font you have (as long as the size is okay) then
you can cut down on the number of fonts and use one font to replace several
other families of fonts.
For example, ‘times’ can be used as a replacement for helvetica and courier.
Now is a good time to create a play area on your system to begin testing
the embedded system.
Create a subdirectory called /phembed off the root of your system.
Within that directory, create 4 subdirectories called:
/phembed/bin
/phembed/lib
/phembed/font_repository
Now back to the fonts.
In my example I wish to use the ‘primasansbts’ truetype font for almost
everything.
I will use a pcterm fixed width font for my pterm terminal windows.
I also want to use a mouse occasionally so I will include the phcursor.phf
file.
Here are the files I need:
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 707 Nov 29 15:20 fontdir
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 104 Mar 20 2000 fontext
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 697 Nov 29 15:19 fontmap
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 12393 Mar 20 2000 pcterm12.phf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 12905 Mar 20 2000 pcterm14.phf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 17437 Mar 20 2000 pcterm20.phf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 2868 Mar 20 2000 phcursor.phf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 75784 Mar 20 2000 tt2001m_.ttf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 77924 Mar 20 2000 tt2002m_.ttf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 71200 Mar 20 2000 tt2003m_.ttf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 82452 Mar 20 2000 tt2004m_.ttf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 56156 Mar 20 2000 tt2009m_.ttf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 58748 Mar 20 2000 tt2011m_.ttf
Copy these files from /usr/photon/font_repository to /phembed/font_repository
Now cd to /phembed/font_repository …
We want to modify the fontdir, fontmap, fontext files to reflect the fonts
and mappings we want for our embedded system.
Here are the modified files in this example:
fontdir
—cut—
;
; fontdir config file, Tue Jan 18 15:34:42 2000
;
phcursor,.phf,Photon Cursor,0,E900-E921,Np,32x32,3K
primasansbts,0@tt2001m_.ttf,PrimaSans BT,0,0020-F002,MIp,133x129,75K
primasansbtsi,0@tt2002m_.ttf,PrimaSans BT,0,I,0020-F002,MIp,134x129,77K
primasansbtsb,0@tt2003m_.ttf,PrimaSans BT,0,B,0020-F002,MIp,143x130,70K
primasansbtsbi,0@tt2004m_.ttf,PrimaSans BT,0,BI,0020-F002,MIp,145x129,81K
primasansmonobts,0@tt2009m_.ttf,PrimaSansMono BT,0,0020-F002,MIf,60x129,55K
primasansmonobtsb,0@tt2011m_.ttf,PrimaSansMono BT,0,B,0020-F002,MIf,60x130,58K
pcterm12,.phf,PC Terminal,12,0000-00FF,Nf,6x12,13K
pcterm14,.phf,PC Terminal,14,0000-00FF,Nf,8x14,13K
pcterm20,.phf,PC Terminal,20,0000-00FF,Nf,10x19,18K
—cut—
As you can see from the above list,
tt2001 = normal font (proportional)
tt2002 = italic
tt2003 = bold
tt2004 = bold and italic
tt2009 = mono space normal font (non-proportional)
tt2011 = mono space bold
pcterm12/14/20 = for my pterm sessions
phcursor = all the mouse cursor images
fontmap
—cut—
;
; fontmap config file, Tue Jan 18 15:34:42 2000
;
BalloonFont = primasansbts
FixedFont = primasansmonobts
HeadingFont = primasansbts
MenuFont = primasansbts
MessageFont = primasansbts
TextFont = primasansbts
TitleFont = primasansbts
Helvetica = primasansbts
Verdana = primasansbts
monospace = primasansmonobts
sans-serif = primasansbts
serif = primasansbts
web = primasansbts
arial = primasansbts
term = pcterm
geneva = primasansbts
monaco = primasansbts
ny = primasansbts
courier = primasansmonobts
dutch = primasansbts
swiss = primasansbts
times = primasansbts
wingbats = primasansbts
helv = primasansbts
ncen = primasansbts
time = primasansbts
? = primasansmonobts
—cut—
fontext
—cut—
;
; fontext config file, Mon Dec 13 15:36:21 1999
;
+normal = primasansbts, primasansmonobts, phcursor
—cut—
Font servers
There are several font servers available:
phfontFA
phfontFF
phfontFA has everything supported (.phf + .ttf), including .pfr’s which are
older scalable font technology.
phfontFF has everything supported (.phf + .ttf) but without the .pfr’s
Unless you explicitly need .pfr support for legacy reasons, we recommend that
you use phfontFF
D. Putting it all together
Now let’s put all the pieces we need in place, and build a simple
script that will start our embedded photon.
You should have already created the following directories:
/phembed/bin
/phembed/lib
/phembed/font_repository
Copy the required binaries to bin/
cp /usr/photon/bin/Photon /phembed/bin
cp /usr/photon/bin/phfontFF /phembed/bin
cp /usr/photon/bin/io-graphics /phembed/bin
cp /usr/photon/bin/devi-hirun /phembed/bin
cp /usr/photon/bin/pwm /phembed/bin
Copy the required libraries to lib/
cp /lib/libph.so.1 /phembed/lib
cp /lib/libphrender.so.1 /phembed/lib
cp /usr/lib/libffb.so.1 /phembed/lib
cp /usr/lib/libdisputil.so.1 /phembed/lib
cp /lib/dll/devg-rage.so /phembed/lib
There is one other library we might need. If you want to run PhaB generated
apps that require libAp.so.1 then you will also need that library.
I recommend making it available.
cp /lib/libAp.so.1 /phembed/lib
We also want to create links in the /phembed/lib directory.
This is required so that apps that look for .so instead of .so.1 will still
work correctly.
Do the following:
cd /phembed/lib
ln -s libAp.so.1 libAp.so
ln -s libph.so.1 libph.so
ln -s libphrender.so.1 libphrender.so
ln -s libffb.so.1 libffb.so
ln -s libdisputil.so.1 libdisputil.so
Now we can look at the graphics driver. In the example above, I am running
the devg-rage.so driver with options of:
dldevg-rage.so -I0 -d0x1002,0x4c42
(I can see this by using ‘pidin arg’)
If you have a different graphics driver, then you will want to copy that
driver to /phembed/lib.
Now we can look again at the fonts.
You should have a /phembed/font_repository directory filled with the .ttf
files that you want, and containing modified fontmap, fontdir, fontext
files as described above.
A start script.
We should now have all the pieces we need in order to try out our
embedded photon system.
The easiest way to try this out is to use a second machine connected to the
first one over a telnet or a null serial cable.
I prefer to use a telnet session.
If you use a null-modem cable, you can start a shell on your terminal
machine by typing ‘on -t/dev/ser1 ksh’ on the qnx realtime platform machine.
A shell prompt (#) should appear on your terminal if the baud and flow
control on the serial ports match okay.
I will assume that you have this connection running okay and that you have
a shell prompt available on a terminal of some kind that is connected to
your qnx machine.
It is useful to have a shell script to start photon.
Here is a shell script that will start photon using the above example.
Copy this shell script to a file called /phembed/ph-start and make the
shell script executable (chmod a+x ph-start)
—cut—
export PHOTON_PATH=/phembed
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/phembed/lib:/lib
cd /phembed/bin
…/Photon &
…/waitfor /dev/photon
…/phfontFF -d /phembed/font_repository -c 20K -j -s 50K -F 10 -S 50 &
…/waitfor /dev/phfont
…/io-graphics -g1024x768x32 -dldevg-rage.so -I0 -d0x1002,0x4c42 &
/usr/photon/bin/phcalc -x100 -y100 &
/usr/photon/bin/phcalc -x300 -y100 &
—cut—
Note the following about the above script:
- I set the export variables to reflect my embedded environment
- I have set some options to the phfontFF program to cut down on memory
usage. See the use message for details. e.g. use /usr/photon/bin/phfontFF - The graphics driver is started exactly the same way as I see the options
printed out with the ‘pidin arg’ command.
If you have a different graphics driver with different options then you
will need to change this line. - I start several copies of the phcalc calculator program, just to show
that photon is running.
I use a program called ‘waitfor’ to halt the script until the requested device
is available.
This is a very simple and useful utility that you can compile and use.
Here is the source:
Compile with: qcc -Vgcc_ntox86 waitfor.c -o waitfor
----cut-----
#ifdef __USAGE
usage: waitfor [-d delay] [-t time] name
-d delay delay between attempts in msec [default 250 ms]
-t time time to wait [default 4 seconds]
Returns true if successful; false and prints an error if unsuccessful.
e.g. Wait for /dev/photon for 3 seconds, checking every 100 milliseconds.
waitfor -t 3 -d 100 /dev/photon
#endif
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
void print_useage()
{
printf(“useage: waitfor [-pr] [-t delay] name\n\n”);
printf(" -d delay delay between attempts in msec [default 250 ms]\n");
printf(" -t time time to wait in seconds [default 4 seconds]\n\n");
printf(“Returns true if success, false if unsuccessful\n”);
exit(1);
}
int main( int argc, char **argv )
{
char name[100];
int wait_time = 4;
int delay_time = 250;
int i;
int done;
while(( i= getopt( argc, argv, “d:t:”)) != -1) {
switch (i) {
case ‘d’: delay_time = atoi( optarg ); break;
case ‘t’: wait_time = atoi( optarg ); break;
case ‘?’:
default:
printf(“invalid option ‘%c’\n\n”, optopt );
print_useage();
break;
}
}
if (optind >= argc)
print_useage();
else
strcpy(name, argv[optind] );
done = 0;
for ( i = 0; i < (( wait_time * 1000 )/delay_time) && done == 0; i++ ) {
if(-1 != open(name, O_RDONLY ) )
done = 1; /* will be closed on exit. */
else
delay( delay_time );
}
if( !done ) {
printf(“Unable to find ‘%s’ within %d seconds.\n”, name, wait_time );
exit(1);
}
exit(0);
return(0);
}
----cut-----
If all has gone well, you should be able to (from your terminal) run the
ph-start script and have photon appear, with two calculator windows side
by side on the screen.
Be sure to exit photon first before running the ph-start script.
Some other handy tips for debugging your embedded photon system:
- by default, we do not start the ‘pwm’ window manager, so you do not have
any borders around your applications, nor can you use a mouse to move
windows around the screen.
There is nothing preventing you from starting and stopping the ‘pwm’
program on the fly.
e.g. (from the terminal window after running the ph-start script)
/usr/photon/bin/pwm &
- by default we do not start a mouse/keyboard driver.
This also can be started and stopped on the fly.
On my embedded system, the following line starts the devi driver:
/usr/photon/bin/devi-hirun kbd fd -d/dev/kbd ps2 kb -2 &
I can run this command directly from the shell prompt on the terminal and
I should atomatically see a mouse pointer appear, and also have keyboard
use.
Please note that on a truly embedded system, you may not have the /dev/kbd
device presented to you, so you will want to look at the documentation for
the devi-* family of drivers.
e.g. devi-hirun kbd kb ps2 kb -2 (if I just have a PS2 port)
\
- you could start any photon program you wish and then kill it off later.
For example, if you needed a terminal window, you could start:
/usr/photon/bin/pterm &
And then exit the terminal window later.
That’s it!!!
Based on this message, it would seem that these suggestions did not work for
you.
Perhaps it might be better to continue correspondence with tech support
staff, so that we can work together to accomplish embedding QNX onto your
flash to meet your deadlines.
what correspondence… it takes 2 days to get any response from tech
support…even after all this sh|7 ive gone through i still think that
photon/neutrino is a superior product over linux an others, its just
that qnx really has to get it together in the embedding and tech
support department…
vince
-Deb
“smeghead” <> lab-101@usa.net> > wrote in message
news:> 5akl2t4u31197igccg627g1btrs0kmnpcr@4ax.com> …
i would have to agree … it took three days for tech support to
respond initially to my question. that was over a week ago and i still
haven’t solved my problem… if fact im feeling alot of blame
diplacement rather than acutal problem solving. im trying to simply
boot rtos off of compact flash. i can boot my CF with dos,linux and
bsd but it locks up when i try to boot rtos… so far the best answer
that ive gotten equates to , although rtos is meant to be embedable
the released version is only supposed to work on desktop systems and
if i wanted to embed my system on CF i would have employ the services
of a specialist third party systems company… after sending back some
rather pointed emails to tech support i have gotten a little closer to
the embedding minimal photon question but still no solution on the
booting problem.
ive basicly got another 1 1/2 weeks to make this work or i will
essensally be fired for my decision to use qnx on this project. i have
to say that if this happens i will be donating a great deal of my new
spare time to the creation and building of a QNX real truths web page
to dispell the myths of QNX and encourage developers to be very
cautious when making any decision to go with QNX
this may sound flame like, but the way i feel about it if i go down
because i actually beleived the QNX marketing information im going
down leaving a rather large crater behind…
vince
iOn Fri, 01 Dec 2000 11:25:40 -0800, Bruce Davis
bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> > wrote:I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it takes
several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be. I
realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I would
just like to know what others think of the situation.
“vince” <vgeisler@engineer.com> wrote in message
news:n4pn2t06690mcfsl94ugklmrq8tfburpa3@4ax.com…
| On Mon, 4 Dec 2000 12:12:56 -0500, “Debbie Kane” <debbie@qnx.com>
| wrote:
|
| >I’ve reviewed the many email correspondence between our tech support staff
| >and yourself, and from what I understand, you are trying to install the QNX
| >RTP from CD to Flash. It should be clear that the QNX RTP is a realtime
| >platform, a development environment, so what you are attempting is not as
| >straight forward as installing to flash. QNX is an embeddable OS, but there
| >are steps to take it from the host OS (as it comes as part of the RTP), to a
| >runtime environment appropriate for your target (flash).
| >
| ahh here comes the blame displacement…
| this should be interesting…
So any response short of “here we fixed your problem for you” is blame
displacement? Interesting theory.
| >Regardless, in an effort to try and help you accomplish installing QNX onto
| >your flash, we have made several suggestions, the latest of which includes:
| >1) sending you sample build files to modify for your configuration, etc.
| done… you have all the build files im using…
|
| >2) re-work your hardware so that your compact flash is the primary master
| >device, so that this configuration will be compatible with our boot loader,
|
| so you want all the venders of pc-104 embedded pc’s to rework their
| hardware (you didn’t happen to ever work at micro$oft did you?) this
| is Totally unreasonable… the de-facto standard for onboard compact
| flash is that it is put on the secondary master… it is nothing i can
| change other than going to an addon pc-104 compact flash interface
| module. i which case i would just go with a ide flash drive…
This suggestion is not totally unreasonable. Many people design their own
hardware and embed QNX6 on it, and changing some FLASH from slave to master is
not an unreasonable option. If you’re using someone else’s hardware and it’s
not an option for you that’s one thing, but either you failed to make that
clear or you’re just being short-tempered because you’re frustrated.
| >3) investigate the settings on the BIOS to select which device to boot from
| >
|
| i have done this also and the standard is if there is nothing in the
| primary master the bios defaults to the secondary master . so i dont
| see that this is even an issue…
|
|
| >Based on this message, it would seem that these suggestions did not work for
| >you.
| >Perhaps it might be better to continue correspondence with tech support
| >staff, so that we can work together to accomplish embedding QNX onto your
| >flash to meet your deadlines.
| what correspondence… it takes 2 days to get any response from tech
| support…
|
| even after all this sh|7 ive gone through i still think that
| photon/neutrino is a superior product over linux an others, its just
| that qnx really has to get it together in the embedding and tech
| support department…
If I understand correctly, you’re taking the QNX6 RtP O.S. and attempting to
get it to boot from a slave CompactFlash device. Given the fact that it won’t
even boot from a SCSI disk yet, I’d have to say that I’m not surprised you’re
having problems. If you had purchased the development kit for the O.S., which
is targeted directly at embedding on a number of different architectures with a
variety of storage and boot options, you would be able to easily custom tailor
a boot solution, provided of course that there’s at least some sort of driver
available for CompactFlash under the processor you’re using (which I believe
there is). However you apparently are instead trying to sledgehammer the free
RtP release with it’s known limited boot capabilities into your existing
hardware environment and having a tough time of it. Now is that really the
fault of the QNX technical support department, or were you perhaps not quite
thorough enough in your investigation of what exactly will and will not work at
the present time? At some point, short of them dropping everything and
assigning a developer to code a solution for you, there may be no other answers
other than it’s just not going to work for you within one week. This doesn’t
mean that their tech support sucks, it just means you didn’t do your homework
and explore all of your options thoroughly. Their embedding capabilities are
outstanding. The SDK has examples of IPL and startup code for all sorts of
hardware and you can customize it to your heart’s content. You just didn’t
purchase it, and you are mistakenly assuming that embedding an O.S. means being
able to perform a desktop PC installation procedure on some “PC compatible”
hardware which calls itsself an embedded computer. It’s not the same thing.
So yes, your post does seem like a flame, and a fairly baseless one at that.
I’m sorry things aren’t working out the way you’d hoped, but I don’t believe
that it’s the fault of the QNX tech support department.
-Warren
“Bruce Davis” <bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> wrote in message
news:3A2BF891.5C69BFA9@boeing.com…
Thanks for your response. As I understand it there will be an option to
buy
multiple incident support plans available, but this is not yet finalized?
If it
is, I would like
the details of how to buy (part numbers, prices, any options, etc). I
need to
be able to buy the plan through my purchasing department, not over the web
using
a credit card.
You understand correctly. Single incidents purchases are only available via
the web right now, with a credit card.
In the next couple of weeks, Incident support packages can be purchased one
at time or in bundles of 5 or 10 (at a discount). These can be purchased
with a PO through your purchasing department and will be available from QNX
customer service at 1 800 363 9001.
1 Incident $ 200.00 (USD)
5 Incidents $ 850.00 (USD)
10 Incidents $1500.00 (USD)
You will then receive your incident ticket numbers that you can submit via
the QDN.
-deb
BTW, I am certainly not “flaming” anyone here. I have been a QNX customer
for
some years, and am a big fan of your product. I am going through some
withdrawals now that the phone support is gone, though…
Debbie Kane wrote:Hello Bruce,
The QDN newsgroups are available to the entire QNX community to discuss
issues, ask questions, throw flames >
monitor
and respond in this forum, it is intended to be a community supported
forum.There are a number of support options available that have guaranteed
response times (see the QDN.qnx.com for details).-Deb
“Bruce Davis” <> bruce.r.davis@boeing.com> > wrote in message
news:> 3A27FB34.2E24A78A@boeing.com> …
I would like to know how others who have purchased developer seats for
the RTP feel about the technical support they are receiving.
Personally, I think the response to posted questions in the newsgroups
from QNX personnel is in general of high quality, but not necessarily
timely. If one is in the thick of a high pressure project and it
takes
several days to get the first response (which typically leads to other
questions, etc), progress is maybe not quite as fast as it could be.
I
realize this is a new product, etc., but I am spending what seems like
an inordinate amount of time banging my head against the wall. I
would
just like to know what others think of the situation.
On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 21:22:29 +0100, Rick Lake
<rwlake@SPAM.REDIRECTED.TO.DEV.NULL> wrote:
[none QSSL response]
smeghead wrote:
[…]
ive basicly got another 1 1/2 weeks to make this work or i will
essensally be fired for my decision to use qnx on this project. i haveThis sounds very drastic. That says more about your employer than QNX’s
tech support. Let’s say you resolve this particular problem in that time
period. Then I fear there will soon be another similar threat lurking.Welcome to working in Canada. B.C especially , where high tech has
been turned into high tech sweat shops. My life consists of living
from one threat to another. i only have to survive one more year of
this and i can go get my H1 visa and go to the states where most
Canadian techs go to find a decent place to work.
to say that if this happens i will be donating a great deal of my new
spare time to the creation and building of a QNX real truths web page
to dispell the myths of QNX and encourage developers to be very
cautious when making any decision to go with QNXTo me this sounds more like personal revenge than an attempt to give the
community objective food for thought when choosing an OS. But I take it
you’re saying this in a state of frustration and that you will think
otherwise when you clearmindedly look back and review the facts and
events.Im Not really into personal revenge although i am fighting the urge
to do so. Its more that when i pay $200.00 to try to save my ass. i
expect a little more help( and much less blame displacement) than ive
gotten so far.
Im not trying to be an a-hole, im just trying to survive.
in the end all of this probbly won’t make any difference as im already
conceding that it is impossable to run rtp from Compactflash. i will
just have to find some other way of making it work, mabey i will have
to use a ide-flash drive.
vince
On Mon, 4 Dec 2000 15:40:23 -0600, “Warren Peece” <warren@nospam.com>
wrote:
“vince” <> vgeisler@engineer.com> > wrote in message
news:> n4pn2t06690mcfsl94ugklmrq8tfburpa3@4ax.com> …
| On Mon, 4 Dec 2000 12:12:56 -0500, “Debbie Kane” <> debbie@qnx.com
| wrote:
|
| >I’ve reviewed the many email correspondence between our tech support staff
| >and yourself, and from what I understand, you are trying to install the QNX
| >RTP from CD to Flash. It should be clear that the QNX RTP is a realtime
| >platform, a development environment, so what you are attempting is not as
| >straight forward as installing to flash. QNX is an embeddable OS, but there
| >are steps to take it from the host OS (as it comes as part of the RTP), to a
| >runtime environment appropriate for your target (flash).
|
| ahh here comes the blame displacement…
| this should be interesting…So any response short of “here we fixed your problem for you” is blame
displacement? Interesting theory.| >Regardless, in an effort to try and help you accomplish installing QNX onto
| >your flash, we have made several suggestions, the latest of which includes:
| >1) sending you sample build files to modify for your configuration, etc.
| done… you have all the build files im using…
|
| >2) re-work your hardware so that your compact flash is the primary master
| >device, so that this configuration will be compatible with our boot loader,
|
| so you want all the venders of pc-104 embedded pc’s to rework their
| hardware (you didn’t happen to ever work at micro$oft did you?) this
| is Totally unreasonable… the de-facto standard for onboard compact
| flash is that it is put on the secondary master… it is nothing i can
| change other than going to an addon pc-104 compact flash interface
| module. i which case i would just go with a ide flash drive…This suggestion is not totally unreasonable. Many people design their own
hardware and embed QNX6 on it, and changing some FLASH from slave to master is
not an unreasonable option. If you’re using someone else’s hardware and it’s
not an option for you that’s one thing, but either you failed to make that
clear or you’re just being short-tempered because you’re frustrated.| >3) investigate the settings on the BIOS to select which device to boot from
|
|
| i have done this also and the standard is if there is nothing in the
| primary master the bios defaults to the secondary master . so i dont
| see that this is even an issue…
|
|
| >Based on this message, it would seem that these suggestions did not work for
| >you.
| >Perhaps it might be better to continue correspondence with tech support
| >staff, so that we can work together to accomplish embedding QNX onto your
| >flash to meet your deadlines.
| what correspondence… it takes 2 days to get any response from tech
| support…
|
| even after all this sh|7 ive gone through i still think that
| photon/neutrino is a superior product over linux an others, its just
| that qnx really has to get it together in the embedding and tech
| support department…If I understand correctly, you’re taking the QNX6 RtP O.S. and attempting to
get it to boot from a slave CompactFlash device. Given the fact that it won’t
even boot from a SCSI disk yet, I’d have to say that I’m not surprised you’re
having problems.
so why does technote # QNX.000010157 discribe a process for doing
this?
If you had purchased the development kit for the O.S., which
is targeted directly at embedding on a number of different architectures with a
variety of storage and boot options, you would be able to easily custom tailor
a boot solution, provided of course that there’s at least some sort of driver
available for CompactFlash under the processor you’re using (which I believe
there is).
I asked support if buying the development seat at this time would make
any difference (although we are still prototyping our design,
something that is allowed under the licence agreement)
the answer i got back was No.
I have always intended to buy the development seat when we go into
production. however 4K is alot to spend unless im absolutly sure that
QNX will work for this and any future projects.
so far for my $200.00 tech support has given my no real answers to
solve my problem and that is what its all about. ive had to wait 2
days at a time for a response to any emails. so yes I am frustrated,
depressed and frustrated to tears.
vince
Why don’t you stop crying? You’ve posted a lot of messages and ignited some
flames, now everyone is listening and thinking ‘oh, poor baby…’.
If you’d have posted your exact problem here instead of just complains, you
might have had it solved already. From what has been told so far it appears
like the work is a piece of cake when taken with proper manoeuvre, but
you’re trying to charge it in a futile frontal assault.
May be it appears easy to me because I don’t know something. Assuming you
have installation problem, I’d do it more or less following way:
- Get RTP installed on regular PC in supported configuration.
- RTFM, especially sections about eide driver, dinit, fdisk, customizing
boot image. - Create your image, which just says ‘hello’ to you if nothing else, simply
to prove the box can be booted with QNX at all. - Boot the damned box in whatever way you can, with your image. Floppy or
TFTP, whatever suit your fancy or whatever you’re able to figure. - Start playing with commands and options to write the image to CF and boot
from there. - Once you get here, start figuring the stuff you need to put on CF to have
whatever parts you need working. You don’t need the whole enchilada for
sure.
Ever heard the expression ‘divide and conquer’? You have to divide to
isolate the thing you need to conquer… That way you know and we know what
exactly thing is not working, you’re in a better position to figure it and
we’re in a better position to help you.
FYI, the thing QNX and their staff is really good at is ability to boot from
almost any kind of weird hardware. Things without BIOS at all, for example
and those requiring custom IPLs and/or startups. Your case is so simple
comparing to those… They helped a lot of people to get through, when those
people behaved in a meaningful way. What you’re doing sounds much like ‘hey
I gave them my $200 and they did not help me to overcome my lack of
engineering skills’. Ever heard the joke about ‘nosmoke.sys’ driver for DOS?
By the way, I did what I’m suggesting to you. Worked fine.
- igor
“vince” <vgeisler@engineer.com> wrote in message
news:md7o2tk2p2pp076n8ormg9oo0fpp0j6pho@4ax.com…
On Mon, 4 Dec 2000 15:40:23 -0600, “Warren Peece” <> warren@nospam.com
wrote:
I asked support if buying the development seat at this time would make
any difference (although we are still prototyping our design,
something that is allowed under the licence agreement)
the answer i got back was No.I have always intended to buy the development seat when we go into
production. however 4K is alot to spend unless im absolutly sure that
QNX will work for this and any future projects.
so far for my $200.00 tech support has given my no real answers to
solve my problem and that is what its all about. ive had to wait 2
days at a time for a response to any emails. so yes I am frustrated,
depressed and frustrated to tears.
vince
“vince” <vgeisler@engineer.com> wrote in message
news:9k4o2t0vo3h0nt80ov0rmb493pdq93iio6@4ax.com…
On Mon, 04 Dec 2000 21:22:29 +0100, Rick Lake
rwlake@SPAM.REDIRECTED.TO.DEV.NULL> > wrote:[none QSSL response]
smeghead wrote:
[…]
ive basicly got another 1 1/2 weeks to make this work or i will
essensally be fired for my decision to use qnx on this project. i haveThis sounds very drastic. That says more about your employer than QNX’s
tech support. Let’s say you resolve this particular problem in that time
period. Then I fear there will soon be another similar threat lurking.Welcome to working in Canada. B.C especially , where high tech has
been turned into high tech sweat shops. My life consists of living
from one threat to another. i only have to survive one more year of
this and i can go get my H1 visa and go to the states where most
Canadian techs go to find a decent place to work.to say that if this happens i will be donating a great deal of my new
spare time to the creation and building of a QNX real truths web page
to dispell the myths of QNX and encourage developers to be very
cautious when making any decision to go with QNXTo me this sounds more like personal revenge than an attempt to give the
community objective food for thought when choosing an OS. But I take it
you’re saying this in a state of frustration and that you will think
otherwise when you clearmindedly look back and review the facts and
events.Im Not really into personal revenge although i am fighting the urge
to do so. Its more that when i pay $200.00 to try to save my ass. i
expect a little more help( and much less blame displacement) than ive
gotten so far.Im not trying to be an a-hole, im just trying to survive.
With this attitude you’ll stay in a surviving state of mind forever.
I know people that work in Canada BC and I think
they would totaly disagree with you.
in the end all of this probbly won’t make any difference as im already
conceding that it is impossable to run rtp from Compactflash. i will
just have to find some other way of making it work, mabey i will have
to use a ide-flash drive.
vince
John Doe <john@csical.com> wrote in message news:90gttr$74t$1@inn.qnx.com…
Show of hands; how many developers reading the qdn.* groups thought
that RtP itself was designed to be embeddable ? This isn’t meant as a
flame,
just curious.
Not I!
even after all this sh|7 ive gone through i still think that
photon/neutrino is a superior product over linux an others, its just
that qnx really has to get it together in the embedding and tech
support department…Who did you use for embedded linux tech support ? Were they free ?
Rennie
“Steve Munnings, Corman Technologies” <steve@cormantech.com> wrote in
message news:90ivs6$dr8$1@inn.qnx.com…
John Doe <> john@csical.com> > wrote in message
news:90gttr$74t$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …Show of hands; how many developers reading the qdn.* groups thought
that RtP itself was designed to be embeddable ? This isn’t meant as a
flame,
just curious.
Not I!
I’m expect QRTP to be able to created embeddable system once
its complete (this is still a pre-release…), till then I won’t
expect anything 
even after all this sh|7 ive gone through i still think that
photon/neutrino is a superior product over linux an others, its just
that qnx really has to get it together in the embedding and tech
support department…Who did you use for embedded linux tech support ? Were they free ?
Rennie
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