Accel32 Server for Linux, Version 1.04 ====================================== Installation ----------------- Extracting the contents of the Accel32 installation file yields four files: -- this readme.txt file -- the license.txt file -- an INSTALL shell script -- a tar archive file Place these files in an appropriate working directory where additional files can be extracted and the kernel driver code can be compiled. Make sure that your system has the gcc compiler and system kernel build systems installed and working. Most distributions have this by default, or as a package install option. Open a terminal and make the current working directory the one that contains the four files from the Accel32 distribution. Run the 'INSTALL' shell script. This will extract the rest of the files from the tar archive, compile the kernel driver files, place a copy in the installed code directory, and complete the installation. DAPL system binary files that run in the embedded DAP environment are not included with the Accel32 Server installer. You must obtain these from the DAPtools CD that came with your DAP board, or from an equivalent downloaded CD image from the Microstar Laboratories Web site. After the installation is finished, the installed files will be located in directory '/usr/local/MicrostarLaboratories' (or the install location that you specified). Look in the 'doc' subdirectory for the 'accel32.txt' file, which provides more detailed information about obtaining a DAPL system binary module, using the driver module, and applying the provided utilities to operate your DAP board. Release notes for Accel32 Server release 1.04.0 -------------------------------------------------- This is the first release offered under the BSD open source license. While this gives you a lot of new flexibility, it also means that there are no officially supported kernel versions or configurations. If the code does not compile and run correctly on a given Linux distribution, your choices are patch the code or try a different distribution. The knowledge base on the Microstar Laboratories web site at http://www.mstarlabs.com/ might have user-contributed patches that will work for you with other kernel verions. Compiling the kernel driver code requires the version 4 'gcc' compiler. This release includes variants that should work with any 32-bit version 2.6 Linux kernel through version 2.6.35. Distributions using kernels newer than this might use an incompatible compiler or kernel build configuration. The Accel32 Server software has been compiled with Suse 10.2, Knoppix 6.3, Fedora 13 and Fedora 14 distributions, with kernels 2.6.13, 2.6.31, 2.6.33 and 2.6.35. Testing was done using kernel versions 2.6.13, 2.6.33 and 2.6.35. Changes in this release: * in the dapio32.h API, the type for filename and query/configure key fields in various structures is changed from "char *" to "const char *". * in the dapio32.h API, the return type of DapLastErrorTextGet() is changed from "char *" to "const char *". * fixed a known problem that attempting to establish a connection to a non-existent DAP board can cause a kernel crash. * patches from "anonymous contributor" adjusting to changes in the Linux kernel beginning in versions 2.6.19 and 2.6.20, and related to interrupt handing structures and their declarations - fixed certain system references in the accel32_fops structure - removed references to "struct pt_regs *" no longer used by the kernel - fixed some module identification text - dropped references to , no longer used by the kernel * patches contributed by Al Conle and Larry Trammell relating to changes in the header structure used for interrupt management in Linux kernels 2.6.30 and 2.6.31 - omitted references to headers no longer used by the kernel - added some new header file references for elements previously defined in the omitted header files - added macros to override some older notations still appearing in the kernel Known limitations: Accel32 Server software is for 32-bit systems. It is not compatible with 64-bit addressing and will probably not work with kernel versions compiled using PAE memory address extensions. Avoid using Accel32 Server on systems having PCI bus interrupts shared by multiple devices, since this ties up the bus with unnecessary interrupt chaining cycles and robs the DAP board of data transfer capacity, possibly leading to data backlogs and premature termination of data capture processes. Previous releases =================== Release notes for Accel32 Server release 1.03 -------------------------------------------------- This version was released in 2007. It supports kernel versions 2.6.11 and 2.6.13 but works with most earlier kernels. Distributions built on Linux kernel versions 2.6.18 were reported to work. The DAPIO32.H header file included in this release may cause problem with some newer versions of the GCC compiler because of unsupported #pragma statements. Either removing these statements from the header file or switching to the G++ compiler may resolve this issue. Release notes for Accel32 Server release 1.02 -------------------------------------------------- This version was added January 2004. It supported the kernel 2.4.21 as distributed by SuSE 9.0 and RedHat 9.0. This release uses the version 3 gcc compiler. Release notes for Accel32 Server release 1.01 -------------------------------------------------- This version introduced compilation of the kernel driver code for the Linux 2.4 kernel. A pre-compiled driver binary was provided for the 2.4.18 kernel distributed with SuSE 8.0. This release uses the gcc 2 compiler.