MAS OS setup on obsolete systems
This page describes the parts of the OS setup procedure for MAS specific to Ubuntu 6.06, 7.10, 8.04, 8.10, and 9.04. For the general OS setup procedure, see: MAS OS setup.
Users are strongly encouraged to run MAS under Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, when possible. See the MAS OS setup for full instructions.
Contents
Disable CDROM seeking
The package manager knows that you have the Ubuntu disk and will say things like
Media change: please insert the disc labeled 'Ubuntu-Server 6.06.1 _Dapper Drake_ - Release i386 (20060807.1)'
To disable this (and download packages from the internet instead), open /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo pico /etc/apt/sources.list
and remove (comment) the line
deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 6.06.1 _Dapper Drake_ - Release i386 (20060807.1)]/ dapper main restricted
Install required packages
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install build-essential subversion emacs21 libreadline5-dev
Enable universe repository and install GGV
Uncomment the line in /etc/apt/sources.list so it says
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper universe
Then run
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gnome-gv
gnome-gv doesn't exist on 7.10, you'll have to settle for
sudo apt-get install gv
Install packages that you shouldn't even want to install (soon to be optional)
sudo apt-get install tcsh
Install desktop manager (optional)
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop gdm
Install python stuff
The 'pyth' branch MAS has experimental support for python using wx and matplotlib:
sudo apt-get install python-dev python-wxglade python-matplotlib python-numarray-ext swig
numpy and scipy
For loading / plotting MCE data in python using mce_data.py, you will want numpy / scipy. The Ubuntu packages can be a bit out of date, but should be enough for basic data manipulation and plotting. Just run:
sudo apt-get install python-numpy python-scipy
For Ubuntu 6.06, numpy and scipy can be obtained following instructions from this page:
http://debs.astraw.com/dapper/
There are some very useful numpy features that are not available on older Ubuntu default packages. To access such features it is not too hard to install more recent versions of numpy (and scipy) from sourceforge:
1. Remove Ubuntu numpy and scipy packages; install dependencies for the source.
sudo apt-get remove python-numpy python-scipy sudo apt-get install libblas-dev lapack-dev
2. Get source tarballs from links below... unzip the contents.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/numpy http://sourceforge.net/projects/scipy
3. Compile the source packages. That means that in each folder you have to do:
./setup.py config ./setup.py build sudo ./setup.py install
The config step complains a fair bit, but it's really obvious when there is an error rather than a warning. The scipy package takes a long time to compile.
Download and install MAS kernel patch
Download
If you're not compiling the kernel from scratch, download the binary packages from UBC:
wget http://e-mode.phas.ubc.ca/~mhasse/mce/kernel-headers-2.6.15.7-bigphys_10.00.Custom_i386.deb wget http://e-mode.phas.ubc.ca/~mhasse/mce/kernel-image-2.6.15.7-bigphys_10.00.Custom_i386.deb wget http://e-mode.phas.ubc.ca/~mhasse/mce/extras.patch
For Ubuntu 7.10, get these instead:
wget http://e-mode.phas.ubc.ca/~mhasse/mce/linux-headers-2.6.22.9-bigphys_10.00.Custom_i386.deb wget http://e-mode.phas.ubc.ca/~mhasse/mce/linux-image-2.6.22.9-bigphys_10.00.Custom_i386.deb
On Ubuntu 7.10 machines without PAE hardware (i.e. a maximum of 4G of system memory) use:
wget http://e-mode.phas.ubc.ca/~mhasse/mce/linux-headers-2.6.22.14-bigphys_2.6.22.14-bigphys-10.00.Custom_i386.deb wget http://e-mode.phas.ubc.ca/~mhasse/mce/linux-image-2.6.22.14-bigphys_2.6.22.14-bigphys-10.00.Custom_i386.deb
Install
Then, install the packages using dpkg:
sudo dpkg -i kernel-headers-2.6.15.7-bigphys_10.00.Custom_i386.deb sudo dpkg -i kernel-image-2.6.15.7-bigphys_10.00.Custom_i386.deb
The "image" file might complain about symbolic links, no big deal.
On Ubuntu 7.10, instead install these:
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.22.9-bigphys_10.00.Custom_i386.deb sudo dpkg -i linux-image-2.6.22.9-bigphys_10.00.Custom_i386.deb
Why are these ones called "linux" instead of "kernel"? I think it's because I got them from Ubuntu repositories instead of kernel.org.
On Ubuntu 7.10 machines without PAE install these:
sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-2.6.22.14-bigphys_2.6.22.14-bigphys-10.00.Custom_i386.deb sudo dpkg -i linux-image-2.6.22.14-bigphys_2.6.22.14-bigphys-10.00.Custom_i386.deb
The Ubuntu 8.04 kernel has a sound-card driver that lays claim to the Motorola DSP on the PCI card. We have to blacklist this module to prevent it from trying to configure the card as a sound card. Add the following to the bottom of /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist :
# Conflicts with Astro-cam PCI card!! blacklist snd_asihpi
Patch
This makes it possible to compile against the kernel package as though it had been locally compiled originally.
cd /usr/src/kernel-headers-2.6.15.7-bigphys/ sudo patch -p1 < ~/extras.patch
This step is not necessary for Ubuntu 7.10. It may be necessary to link the kernel headers into /lib/modules:
sudo ln -s /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.22.9-bigphys/ /lib/modules/2.6.22.9-bigphys/build
We need to add the kernel option that causes bigphys to allocate boot memory for our driver. In older versions of MAS (especially ACT's stable release) we also need to disable "acpi". It's a good idea to not run any DSP/MCE commands until all of your kernel options are in place.
Having installed the kernel "image" package, the kernel should show up in the boot loader (grub)'s kernel list.
Editing the kernel list
As root (or using sudo), edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst .
sudo pico /boot/grub/menu.lst
Go to the list of kernels, below the line "## ## End Default Options ##", and find the new kernel entry. On Ubuntu 6.06, it should be the third block (index 2), and look like this:
title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.15.7-bigphys root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.15.7-bigphys root=/dev/sda3 ro quiet splash initrd /initrd.img-2.6.15.7-bigphys savedefault boot
Add the kernel options to the "kernel" line, producing either this (recent MAS):
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.15.7-bigphys root=/dev/sda3 ro quiet splash bigphysarea=8192
or this (old MAS, esp. ACT):
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.15.7-bigphys root=/dev/sda3 ro quiet splash bigphysarea=8192 acpi=off
Save and close the file, and reboot to test this kernel. If the kernel "works", you can edit menu.lst again and change the value of the "default" option to point to this kernel:
default 2
Ubuntu 7.10 and later: the kernel packages install a bit differently so the block will likely be the first one in the list. The 'kernel' line must change from something like
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.9-bigphys root=UUID=1b6e7b54-894d-4571-9f0a-527fe0103975 ro quiet splash
to
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.9-bigphys root=UUID=1b6e7b54-894d-4571-9f0a-527fe0103975 ro quiet splash bigphysarea=8192
Note that the long hexadecimal serial numbers are system specifc and yours are probably different than these ones. Leave them as they are and just add the new kernel options. The "default" option will probably be
default 0
but it's a good idea to count these things out for yourself.
