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QNX® Software Development Platform for x86 Targets 6.5.0: Installation Note — QNX® Neutrino® Hosts

QNX® Software Development Platform for x86 Targets 6.5.0: Installation Note — QNX® Neutrino® Hosts

Date of this edition: July 22, 2011

Target OS: This development suite produces software that's compatible with x86 targets that are running QNX® Neutrino® 6.5.0.

Host OS: You can install this package in an empty partition on your system.

Caution: If you downloaded QNX SDP 6.5.0 from our website between June 28, 2010 and July 12, 2010, please read the following:

Build 201006230248 of 6.5.0 contained a filesystem error. If you installed that version, uninstall it, and then install build 201007091524. To determine which version you have, check the build number in the archive name or in base_dir/install/qnxsdp/6.5.0/version. On self-hosted QNX Neutrino systems, you can also use the uname -v command to get a version timestamp that identifies the build:

Build Timestamp
201006230248 2010/06/23-02:11:33EDT
201007091524 2010/07/09-14:44:03EDT
Note:
  • This is a special version of QNX SDP that's for x86 targets only. If you want to develop for other targets, install the full QNX Software Development Platform 6.5.0. You can't upgrade the x86 development suite into the full version.
  • If you've already installed an evaluation version of QNX SDP 6.5.0, and you've purchased and received a commercial QNX license or you've received an evaluation extension license, please go to “Commercializing your evaluation software,” below.

Contents

Licensing

QNX SDP 6.5.0 introduces a new licensing scheme:

Once you've installed the QNX Software Development Platform, you can find all the license agreements in base_dir/install/qnxsdp/6.5.0, where base_dir is where you installed SDP (see the output from the qconfig command).

For more information about license agreements, see the Licensing area of http://www.qnx.com, or email .

Before you start

Before you install this software, please note the following:

System requirements

Minimum Recommended
Processor 2 GHz or more Intel Pentium 4 2 GHz or more Intel Pentium 4
RAM 512 MB 1 GB
Disk space 1.6 GB 1.8 GB
Monitor 1024×768 1280×1024
Caution: Some x86 systems can run in System Management Mode (SMM), where the BIOS installs special code that runs when a System Management Interrupt (SMI) occurs. SMI interrupts may be generated by the motherboard or peripheral hardware, and can't be masked by the operating system. When SMM is entered, normal operations — including the OS — are suspended, and the SMI handler runs at a high priority. Avoid using systems where SMM can't be disabled, because it can destroy QNX Neutrino's realtime performance. The OS can't do anything about the delays that SMM introduces, nor can the OS even detect that the system has entered SMM.

You can also install the QNX Neutrino RTOS as a virtual machine on VMware Workstation 6.5 or 7.0, VMWare Player 3.0, and Microsoft VirtualPC 2007. To ensure that VMware is supported for your host, search the compatibility guide located at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php. If you find problems with any virtualization environment, please post your findings in one of the forums in our Foundry27 community website.

BIOS settings

We recommend you use the following BIOS settings:

Installing QNX SDP

To install QNX SDP, do the following:

  1. Insert the QNX Software Development Platform 6.5.0 Installation DVD or the QNX Software Development Platform 6.5.0 Installation and Boot CD (x86 Targets) into the appropriate drive.
  2. Boot from the disk and follow the instructions on your screen. Depending on your system, the installer may ask you to do the following:
    • Decide whether to run from the disk or install QNX Neutrino into a new disk partition. Press F3 to install, and then choose between normal and verbose modes.
    • Enter your license key. You can use lower- or uppercase for the letters, and it doesn't matter if you include or omit the hyphens.
    • Read the license agreement. To accept its terms and continue with the installation, press F1.
    • Choose which disk you'd like to install QNX Neutrino on.
    • If your system has more than one DVD or CD drive, choose which one you'd like to install QNX Neutrino from.
    • Choose the location for the new partition, and then the type:
      • 177, 178, or 179 for the Power-Safe (fs-qnx6.so) filesystem — see the Filesystems chapter of the System Architecture guide for a description
      • 77, 78, or 79 for the QNX 4 (fs-qnx4.so) filesystem

      If you're installing directly to a USB drive, choose one of the QNX 4 types (77, 78, or 79). The Power-Safe (fs-qnx6.so) filesystem can't guarantee that the filesystem is power-safe on devices that don't support synchronizing.

      The default is 179. If there's already a partition of the type you chose, you're given the choice of deleting a partition or choosing another type.

    • Choose the size of the new partition.
    • The installer might ask you to choose a boot loader to use.
    • Choose where to install the software. We recommend you use the default location, /usr/qnx650.

    The installer will also ask if you wish to install a package of GNU Public License programs, such as tar and sed. We recommend that you do so for development machines.

    Note: If you encounter any I/O errors during the installation, disable DMA by restarting and pressing d when the system displays the “Hit space for options...” message. (Ref# 42044)
  3. When prompted, remove the disk from the drive and then reboot.
    Note:
    • If your EIDE doesn't support DMA:
      • If you're using the Power-Safe filesystem (fs-qnx6.so), boot using qnxbase.ifs.
      • If you're using the QNX 4 filesystem (fs-qnx4.so), boot with .altboot by pressing Esc when prompted.
    • If you've installed QNX Neutrino directly on a USB drive, and the system doesn't boot automatically, replace the partition boot loader; from a working system, run:

      dloader /dev/part pc2

      where part is the device name of the partition you need to boot. (Ref# 61707)

    If you have more than one partition on your disk, choose the one you installed QNX Neutrino in. Choose the appropriate boot loader. If you don't choose a partition or boot loader, the system uses the default ones.

  4. The first time you boot, a dialog asks you to choose the video driver, resolution, color depth, and refresh rate that are appropriate for your system. You can also select Global Options so you can choose whether to boot into text or graphical (Photon) mode.
    Note: When you start a QNX Neutrino system for the first time, it chooses a “safe” graphics driver (devg-svga.so or devg-vesabios.so, depending on the installed chipset). However, these generic VESA BIOS and SVGA drivers can negatively impact the timing of a system and affect realtime operations. We recommended you use an accelerated driver instead, if at all possible.
  5. Log in as root (or click Superuser in graphical mode). This account initially has no password; for instructions for setting the password and creating other accounts, see the Managing User Accounts chapter of the QNX Neutrino User's Guide. You'll find this manual in the online documentation, as well as on our website.
  6. Set the time zone, time, date, and so on in the Localization windows.
  7. Activate your software (see “Activating QNX SDP,” below).

For more information about booting, see the Controlling How Neutrino Starts chapter of the QNX Neutrino User's Guide.

Note: If you're using a computer that supports APIC chipsets, you should download and install the APIC-enabled QNX Neutrino ISO from Downloads-->QNX Software Development Platform 6.5.x on our website, www.qnx.com.

This ISO image boots using startup-apic and pci-bios-v2 and will install a new boot image called qnxbasesmp-apic.ifs. This is the default image for normal booting.

If you've installed QNX SDP from the x86-only CD, or if you've installed using the APIC-enabled version of the x86-only CD from the download center and you want to target non-x86 platforms for development, you must manually install the non-x86 targets, as follows:

  1. After you've installed the QNX Neutrino RTOS, you can retrieve the non-x86 packages from the download center. If you installed from the CD, but your system has a DVD drive (for example, you require APIC support), then you can insert the DVD.

    Use /fs/cd0/repository as the source path below; otherwise you must manually transfer the packages from the DVD. Place the files in a location on your local filesystem. This is your source path.

  2. Change to /usr/qnx650.
  3. For each of the following files: qnx6-host.tarx, qnx6-target.tarx, and qnx6-target-gpl.tarx, run the following:

    qinst d /fs/cd0/repository/FN | tar -zx -f-

    where FN is one of the qnx6xxx.tarx files listed above.

Errors while booting

If an error occurs while you're booting your system, the boot loader may display the error messages listed below, depending on the type of partition that you chose.

For a Power-Safe (fs-qnx6.so) filesystem, the boot loader may display the following messages:

Unsupported BIOS
The BIOS doesn't support INT13 LBA extensions.
Missing OS Image
The filesystem isn't an fs-qnx6 one, or the .boot directory is empty.
Invalid OS Image
The selected file isn't an x86 startup boot image.
Disk Read Error
A physical I/O error occurred while reading the disk.
Ram Error
A physical RAM error occurred while copying the boot image.

If an error occurs when you boot from a QNX 4 filesystem, the boot loader displays one of the following characters, and then the boot process halts:

S
No OS signature was found.
D or ?
An error occurred reading the disk.

For more information, see the Controlling How Neutrino Starts chapter of the QNX Neutrino User's Guide.

Activating QNX SDP

The QNX Momentics Tool Suite and certain related products require activation. If you don't activate the product within the specified timeframe, the product will cease to function until you activate it. No personal data is transferred during the activation process. If your license key indicates that you have a “named user” license, the activation requires that you provide an email address.

Activating automatically

If your development host is connected to the Internet, you can activate QNX SDP automatically.

Activating manually

if your machine isn't connected to the Internet, you must activate your software manually from a machine that is, by doing the following:

  1. In the QNX SDP Activation dialog, click Activate Manually.

    The Manual Activation dialog appears with an activate-prompt key. This dialog has a button that you can use to save the activate-prompt key in a file, /etc/qnx/license/activate_prompt_key.txt. Using this file eliminates the need to retype the key, which can be error-prone.

  2. Transfer the activate-prompt key to the machine that's connected to the Internet.
  3. Go to our website, www.qnx.com, log into your myQNX account, and choose Manual Product Activation.
  4. Enter the activate-prompt key into the form that appears, and then click Generate Response Key. This will return an activate-response key.
  5. Copy the activate-response key and paste it in a file.
  6. Transfer the file into /etc/qnx/license/activate_response_key.txt on your QNX SDP development host.
  7. If you closed the QNX SDP Activation dialog, open it again by selecting Configure-->Activate License from the Launch menu, or by entering the following at a terminal prompt: 
    /etc/qnx/bin/qnxactivate -a
  8. Choose Activate Manually, and use the Load Response from File button to load the activate-response key, and then click Activate.

If you choose not to activate at the time of installation, you can activate later by selecting Configure-->Activate License from the Launch menu, or by entering the following at a terminal prompt: 

/etc/qnx/bin/qnxactivate -a

Commercializing your evaluation software

If you installed an evaluation copy of QNX SDP 6.5.0, and you've now received a commercial QNX license, do the following to add your commercial license:

  1. Choose Configure-->Add License from the Launch menu.
  2. Enter the license key.
  3. After entering the license key, you'll be presented with the appropriate license agreement. You'll need to accept it in order to successfully add a license.

Uninstalling QNX SDP

Note: You should uninstall QNX products in the reverse order in which you installed them. To determine this order, use a command like this:

ls -lt `find base_directory -name "*uninstall*.sh"`

where base_directory is where you installed the QNX Software Development Platform.

To completely uninstall QNX SDP, simply erase or delete the partition you installed it in.

Determining your base directory

To determine the base directory for QNX SDP, open a command shell and use the qconfig command. For example: 

$ qconfig
QNX Installations

  Installation Name: QNX Software Development Platform 6.5.0
            Version: 6.5.0
     Base Directory: /usr/qnx650/
           QNX_HOST: /usr/qnx650/host/qnx6/x86/
         QNX_TARGET: /usr/qnx650/target/qnx6/

The base directory in this example is /usr/qnx650/, but it could be different on your machine, depending on where you installed QNX SDP.

Getting started with the documentation

After you've installed QNX SDP, you'll find an extensive set of HTML documentation:

The “roadmap” page contains links to the various HTML booksets that accompany the OS. We recommend that you start with Welcome to the QNX Software Development Platform for an overview of QNX SDP. Next, see 10 Steps to Developing a QNX Program: Quickstart Guide for a short tutorial that will help you get started, and then refer to the other documents (System Architecture, QNX Neutrino Programmer's Guide, Library Reference, Utilities Reference, and so on).

You can install and work with multiple versions of QNX Neutrino. Whether you're using the command line or the IDE, you can choose which version of the OS to build programs for. For more information, see the IDE User's Guide or the QNX Neutrino Programmer's Guide.

Technical support

To obtain technical support for any QNX product, visit the Support area on our website (www.qnx.com). You'll find a wide range of support options, including community forums.

For questions about installing and using QNX SDP, see the QNX Momentics Getting Started forum on our Foundry27 site, http://community.qnx.com. There are other forums for specific topics, including the QNX Neutrino RTOS, development tools, networking, Board Support Packages, and so on.

 
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