I've got QNX licensed, up and (mostly) running on the EFIKA. Just curious if anyone else, except the folks at bplan who I keep bugging with my emails, is doing this?

Couple more days and I can get back to working on the robotics "resource manager", which is the point of the project :)

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Kevin Nickels, Assoc. Prof, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USA

Doesn't a QNX developer license for PowerPC cost like 10,000 USD?

The non-commercial edition is free for download (according to the OpenQNX FAQ). However, this may be x86 only, and certainly doesn't allow business use. But a "Standard Edition" is now $4300 (same source). It's definitely not for hobbyists, but I wouldn't think that would be a HUGE investment for someone making a business out of this.

Anyway, I'll just remind you of my profession and point to QNX's excellent QNX In Education Program for a real explanation :)

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Kevin Nickels, Assoc. Prof, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USA

The free version of QNX is x86 only. Most of us Amigans
tried that one out a few years back when the Amiga emu-
lator AmigaXL was based on QNX.

I used Qnx (4.xx up to 6.3.0) at work. For some private projects, I use the free x86 ones.

Although I really would like to see Qnx on my Pegs, I'm not willing to pay thousands for it.

The OS I choose at work are pre-tested in my private use. For this reason, most programmers tend to choose linux instead of an OS which charges $4300 for an testing version.

From http://www.qnx.com/company/education/faq.html
Is bug testing and experimentation educational? I'd like to try QNX on my Efika but what's involved?

QNX-in-Education is for university/college staff and students. You would have to contact the correct department at your university to see if you could be eligible.

If not in education;

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/6208

This is by far the easiest way, however we understand LabView is not for everyone.

You basically need a QNX license (as Kevin stated, it's $4000+) or contact QNX for a trial edition based on the Lite5200 BSP.

Once you have that, bplan can give you the beta firmware (which unfortunately breaks Linux) and the QNX additions for the Aura firmware utilisation.

It isn't the easiest thing in the world to get hold of or use right now, but we do expect it to get a lot easier.

I personally would love to see a non-commercial limited-use version of Momentics downloadable for the Efika, but in the end I really do think we are looking at a moot point; Momentics' download is a bootable CD, and most Efikas do not have a CD drive (even if they are being built into CD drive cases :)

The release of the new 512X Efika board will mark the commercial release of Aura, and no doubt the emergence of a proper Aura BSP, and no firmware updates required (and Linux patches). The same firmware technology will be on the original Efika, and the same BSP will work on it. That's the whole idea, but you will just have to wait for it...

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Matt Sealey

Is updating the Efika's firmware something to do done from within a working OS?

I'm beginning to suspect I might not have the most complete SmartFirmware command list - I'd actually like to know a lot more about SF and Aura for that matter.

To upgrade the firmware you place it on a device
readable from SmartFirmware. Then you simply
boot that file.

To get a firmware command (Forth calls them "words") list;
If you need help on using any command, just type
Where the xx is the name of the command. For instance, boot or probe-all or something.

Updating the firmware is done with a self-contained firmware update tool. It runs from the firmware prompt and doesn't need an OS to be running at all.

_________________
Matt Sealey

Please let us know if you are interested in this opportunity:



http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/6208

R&B

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

I download the qnx os cd from qnx web site (including powerpc support) but how to boot on it without CD on Efika ?? can someone help me ? is it possible to transfert the cd content to an usb pen ? how to load boot image ??
QNX seems to be a perfect OS (with MorphOS) on Efika but there's no tutorial...
best
Bruno

Have you seen Guido "Geit" Mersmann's USBBoot utility? The readme file says:

"This script allows to boot your Pegasos/Efika from usb stick or other media, which is useful to keep an easy to use backup without the need of using a CDRW. It's also not required to boot from root of a partition. So you can backup your system into a drawer on the same partition and boot from inside that drawer. Also useful when creating a bootable CD iso. You can test it on writable devices like harddrives which is not only faster when booting. It's also easy to modify a dvd sized boot iso on the fly without having to burn a CD/DVD."

Guido is a very prolific MorphOS programmer, and has one of the cutest Efika setups I've seen too!

That's only for booting MorphOS from a USB device and it relies on having a hard disk or so in the first place.

There is no way to boot a Pegasos over USB unless you are very, very lucky (beta firmware from 2006 which we have since disavowed), and with Efika, it is not difficult to boot from USB anyway (it is MorphOS which is slightly less capable in this regard).

Neither are stopping you from booting QNX; your problems here will be of the order of, you cannot run QNX without a suitable license, there is no bootable PPC QNX available on QNX's website, and in any case our QNX support relies on an unreleased firmware.

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Matt Sealey

So to get this working, I ended up with this (working from memory here):

• Install QNX momentics on a host machine (i.e. a linux box. (need license from QNX)
• Download and install lite5200 board support package (within momentics, on the host) (need another license from QNX)
• Install the unreleased firmware that matt mentions onto the efika
• Install some patches to your image (modifications to the lite5200 BSP - from Genesi).
• Compile into an image.
• Take this image to your efika via TFTP booting of the openfirmware or just copy onto memory stick.
  boot the efika! Now you can write programs in momentics and run them on the efika till you're happy with them then build them into the image when you're done with them and ready to deploy (I suppose - I haven't gotten this far yet).

Or maybe just buy a QNX with LabVIEW on it from National Instruments
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/6208
(presumably this comes with some sort of QNX license on it.

_________________
Kevin Nickels, Assoc. Prof, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USA