I wanted to pass along a complication pointed out by K. Thorne re: our plan to use Gen1 (old) Dolphin IPC cards in the new real-time machines: c1bhd, c1sus2. The implication is that we may be forced to install a very old OS (e.g., Debian 8) for compatibility with the IPC card driver, which could lead to other complications like an incompatibility with the modern network interface.
Hardware is easy - you will also need a DX switch and the cables
As for the driver - the last update (version 4.4.5) was in 2016. The notes on it say valid for Linux kernel 2.6 to 3.x. This implies that it will not work with Linux kernel 4.x and greater
So - Gentoo with 3.0 kernel OK, SL7 (kernel 3.10) - OK, Debian 8 (kernel 3.16) - OK
But Debian 9 (kernel 4.9),Debian 10 (kernel 4.19) - NOT OK
We have Gentoo with kernel 3.0 boot server, etc. [used in L1,H1 production right now, but not much longer] The hard part here will be making sure we have network drivers for the SuperMicro 5018-MR.
CDS was never able to get real-time builds to work well on Linux kernels from 3.2 on up until we got to Debian 9. This is not to say that the tricks and stripped-down RCG we found worked for real-time on Debian 9 and 10 won’t work on, say, Debian 8. But we have not tried.
I have a query out to Dolphin asking:
- Have they done any testing of these old drivers on Linux kernel 4.x (e.g., Debian 9/10)?
- Is there any way to buy modern IPC cards for the two new machines and interface them with our existing Gen1 network?
I'll add more info if I hear back from them. |