QNX Technical Articles
QNX® Momentics® Development Suite 6.3.2 Installation Note -- QNX® Neutrino® Hosts
Date of this edition: April 30, 2008
Target OS: This development suite produces software that's compatible with targets that are running QNX® Neutrino® 6.3.2.
Host OS: You can install this package in an empty partition on your system.
 |
|
Contents
- System requirements
- BIOS settings
- Updating disk drivers
- Installing QNX Momentics
- Activating QNX Momentics
- Commercializing your evaluation software
- Creating a bootable floppy
- Uninstalling QNX Momentics
- Determining your base directory
- Getting started with the docs
- Technical support
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 | 2.1 GB | 2.1 GB |
| Monitor | 1024×768 | 1280×1024 |
In order to install 6.3.2, you need 1200 MB of disk space, which includes the space required for backups and temporary space used in installing the files.
The System Profiler in the IDE requires a minimum color depth of 16 bits.
BIOS settings
We recommend you use the following BIOS settings:
- Disable Plug and Play OS.
- Set any parallel ports and onboard serial ports to specific addresses, if possible, instead of using an automatic setting.
- Enable SATA if your system includes a SATA drive.
- If you want to boot QNX Neutrino from the CD — either to try it without installing it, or for troubleshooting — make sure that the CD is the first boot device.
- If your BIOS is has an option for booting from “Other USB devices,” enabling it could make the BIOS take a very long time to start.
Updating disk drivers
The Neutrino boot process can dynamically add block I/O (i.e. disk) drivers, letting you boot on systems with newer controllers. The mechanism is simple and not proprietary to QNX Software Systems, so third parties can offer enhanced block drivers without any intervention on our part.
The driver update consists of the drivers themselves (devb-* only) and a simple configuration file. The configuration file is in plain text (DOS or UNIX line endings accepted), with the following format:
drvr_name|type|timeout|add_args
The first three fields are mandatory. The fields are as follows:
- drvr_name
- The file name of the driver.
- type
- The string for the boot process to display when trying the driver.
- timeout
- The total time to wait for devices.
- add_args
- Any additional arguments to the driver (e.g. blk cache=512k).
The configuration file must be called drivers.cfg, and you must supply the update on a physical medium, currently a CD-ROM or a USB flash drive. The boot process looks in the root of the filesystem first, and then in a directory called qnxdrvr. This can help reduce clutter in the root of the filesystem.
The source filesystem can be any of the supported filesystems. These filesystems are known to work:
- standard ISO9660 filesystems on CD-ROM
- DOS (t7 partition) and QNX 4 (t79 partition) filesystems on a USB flash drive
If the update is distributed over the web in zip or tar format with the qnxdrvr structure preserved, an end user simply has to download the archive, unzip it to a USB drive, and insert the USB drive on booting.
You can apply a driver update by pressing Space during booting and selecting F2. The system then completes the startup of the standard block drivers, giving a source filesystem to apply the update from. You're then prompted to choose the filesystem and insert the update media.
|
If you need to rescan the partitions (for example, to find a USB drive that you inserted after booting), press F12. |
Once the files have been copied, you're prompted to reinsert the QNX Momentics installation CD if applicable. The block drivers are then restarted.
This mechanism also lets you update existing drivers or simply modify their arguments (e.g. PCI ID specification).
If you're installing, then the installation program copies the updated drivers to /sbin and the configuration file to /boot/sys. It then makes copies of the standard build files in /boot/build (except multicore ones) and calls them qnxbase-drvrup.build and qnxbasedma-drvrup.build. These files are then used to create new image files called qnxbase-drvrup.ifs and qnxbasedma-drvrup.ifs in /boot/fs. The DMA version of this new file is copied to /.boot, and the non-DMA version is copied to /.altboot.
|
The installation program doesn't rebuild multicore (SMP) images. |
Applying a driver update patch after you've installed QNX Neutrino
If you're updating or adding drivers to an already existing QNX Neutrino system using this mechanism, you must manually copy the drivers to the correct directory, and you must modify the boot image to use the new driver:
- Boot the machine and apply the driver updates.
- Once the machine has booted, copy the following from the driver update
disk used in step 1:
- Copy the new devb-* drivers to /sbin.
- Copy drivers.cfg to somewhere under /. If you put it in a directory that's in the mkifs search path (e.g. /sbin, /boot/sys), mkifs will find it automatically.
- Copy the build file (typically qnxbasedma.build) to driverupdate.build.
- Edit the build file and do the following:
- Add the names of the new block drivers (devb-*) after devb-eide.
- Add the drivers.cfg file at the end.
If the file is in the mkifs search path, then just add the
file name.
Otherwise add the full path:
drivers.cfg=/path/drivers.cfg
- As a safety precaution (so you'll be sure to have at least one image
that boots):
cp /.boot /.altboot
- mkifs driverupdate.build /.boot
Installing QNX Momentics
|
|
This CD includes the runtime version of the QNX Neutrino RTOS, as well as development tools and the IDE.
To install this software:
- Insert the QNX Momentics Neutrino Host CD in the CD drive.
- Boot from the CD and follow the instructions on your screen.
The installer asks you to do the following:
- Decide whether to run from the CD 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. 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.
- Choose which filesystem you'd like to install QNX Neutrino from; choose the appropriate CD device.
- Choose the type for the new partition: 77, 78, or 79 (the default). 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. You can also examine the partition table if you want to delete an existing partition.
- Choose a boot loader to use.
- Choose where to install the software. We recommend you use the default location, /usr/qnx632.
The installer will also ask if you wish to install some GNU Public License programs, such as tar and sed. We recommend that you do so for development machines.
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) - Remove the CD from the drive and then reboot.
If your EIDE doesn't support DMA, boot using .altboot; press Esc when prompted. If you have more than one partition on your disk, choose the one you installed QNX Neutrino in.
- 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 choose whether to boot into text or graphical (Photon) mode.
- 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.
Congratulations — you've completed the installation!
Activating QNX Momentics
The QNX Momentics development 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 development host is connected to the Internet, you can activate QNX Momentics automatically; if your machine isn't connected to the Internet, you must activate your software manually from a machine that is, by doing the following:
- In the QNX Momentics 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. This can eliminate the need to retype the key, which can be error-prone.
- Transfer the activate-prompt key to the machine that's connected to the Internet.
- Go to our website, www.qnx.com, log into your myQNX account, and choose Activate Products (6.3.x).
- Enter the activate-prompt key into the form that appears, and then click Generate Response Key. This will return an activate-response key.
- Copy the activate-response key and paste it in a file.
- Transfer the file into /etc/qnx/license/activate_response_key.txt on your QNX Momentics development host.
- If you closed the QNX Momentics Activation dialog, open it again
by selecting
from the Launch menu, or by entering the following at a terminal prompt:
/etc/qnx/bin/qnxactivate -a
- 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 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 Momentics 6.3.2, and you've now received a commercial QNX License Certificate, do the following to add your commercial license:
- Choose from the
Launch menu, or type:
/usr/sbin/finstall -l
- Enter the license-key information that's on your commercial QNX License Certificate.
- Read the displayed End User License Agreement (EULA) and accept its terms if you wish to continue.
Creating a bootable floppy
We recommend that you install QNX Momentics on a machine that can boot from a CD-ROM. If your machine can't do this, you can create a bootable floppy.
The root directory of the QNX Momentics installation CD contains an image of a bootable floppy, named instflop.dat. To copy this file to a boot disk:
- On UNIX-style machines (including QNX Neutrino),
use the dd utility to copy this image to a boot disk:
dd if=instflop.dat of=/dev/fd0
- On Windows, you need a raw-copy utility.
Although we don't support any such utilities, we recommend you use
rawwrite, which you can find at:
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm
Download this utility and extract it to a folder.
To create a bootable floppy:
- Start rawwrite.
- Make sure the Floppy Drive combo box refers to your floppy drive.
- Under the Write tab, specify the location of instflop.dat in the Image File field, and click Write.
Uninstalling QNX Momentics
|
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 QNX Momentics. |
To completely uninstall QNX Momentics, simply erase or delete the partition you installed it in.
Determining your base directory
To determine the base directory for QNX Momentics, open a command shell and use the qconfig command. For example:
$ qconfig
QNX Installations
Installation Name: QNX Momentics 6.3.2
Version: 6.3.2
Base Directory: /usr/qnx632/
QNX_HOST: /usr/qnx632/host/qnx6/x86/
QNX_TARGET: /usr/qnx632/target/qnx6/
The base directory in this example is /usr/qnx632/, but it could be different on your machine, depending on where you installed QNX Momentics.
Getting started with the docs
After you've installed your development suite, you'll find an extensive set of online documentation in HTML format:
- On Linux and Windows hosts, you can read it in the Integrated Development Environment's help system.
- On self-hosted QNX Neutrino systems, you can read it in the Integrated Development Environment's help system or in the Photon helpviewer, or you can use a web browser to display ${QNX_TARGET}/usr/help/product/momentics/bookset.html.
The “roadmap” page contains links to the various HTML booksets that accompany the OS (e.g. System Architecture, QNX Neutrino Programmer's Guide, Library Reference, Utilities Reference, etc.).
|
The online documentation also includes the installation and release notes. For the most up-to-date version of these notes, go to our website, www.qnx.com, log into your myQNX account, and then go to the Download Center. |
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.
|
Coexistence of 6.3 and 6.2.1 is supported only on Windows hosts. |
Technical support
If you have any questions, comments, or problems with a QNX product, please contact Technical Support. For more information, see the How to Get Help chapter of the Welcome to QNX Momentics guide or visit our website, www.qnx.com.