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Author Topic: What is the best system to work with Axon  (Read 2654 times)

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Offline heliTopic starter

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What is the best system to work with Axon
« on: November 07, 2014, 01:15:51 AM »
Hi Guys

I have just purchased the Axon 2 and intend to use this device for a lot of cool things but Windows 8 just does not like it.
I want to go out and buy a dedicated laptop for this work with the Axon 2 processor.
I am a mechanical engineer by trade and its been a while since my old programing days but looking forward to using the Axon 2, hence the programming/ bootloading issues.

What is the best system to get and what should I be looking or asking for? Is this a used computer hunt problem for an old 32 Bit system?
I don't intend to use that laptop for any other tasks but program development.
It appears from previous posts on the site that Windows Vista and later systems have problems that take cause pain to the user to try and get it right.
I would like to know the system details from guys that have had no problems with the Axon right out of the box. I would like to buy or put together a similar system.
Yes, it is a different way to solve this problem but in my opinion has the lowest stress factor.

Cheers Heli

Offline mallster

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2014, 01:35:44 AM »
I've found windows 7 64-bit and webbot studio to work well. However have not been able to workaround compile errors with webbot studio and windows 8.


Offline heliTopic starter

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #2 on: November 08, 2014, 01:01:09 AM »
Yes, McUber freezes up my whole system when bootloading with Windows 8.
Can windows 7 run on a 32 bit option from the start up disk?

Heli

Offline Gertlex

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2014, 02:01:22 AM »
In general Windows 7 is a good bet. But if you run into trouble, PM Webbot on these forums. He's very good at replying and helping.

I've found windows 7 64-bit and webbot studio to work well. However have not been able to workaround compile errors with webbot studio and windows 8.

I've had this issue too, on two or three 64bit systems.

I've managed to work around the issues on Win 8 (And Win 10 preview, just today), and am going to message Webbot about this in the next few days. Quick answer is the following steps:

0) If webbotlibstudio is giving you errors during setup when it's building the files, just keep closing the errors, there's going to be one for each processor....

1a)  In the WebbotLibStudio install directory, there is its own copy of WinAVR-20100110. It has a subfolder utils/bin, which contains a few versions of the msys-1.0.dll file. Rename the one with that name to e.g. msys-1.0.dll.orig, and then rename msys-1.0.dll.64 to msys-1.0.dll. This file that you want has a Date Modified of 5/18/2007.

1b) (only if you installed WinAVR separately from WebbotlibStudio) In the install directory for WinAVR-20100110, again in utils/bin, you want the msys-1.0.dll that has the 2007 timestamp. This probably doesn't exist, so rename the existing one, and copy the one with the 2007 timestamp from WebbotLibStudio's copy of WinAVR to this location as well. (Also, WinAVR-20100110/bin needs to be in your PATH variable, but I'm assuming that was taken care of already...)

2) Since webbotlibstudio presumably failed to build the avr libraries (aka step 0 above), we can build them ourselves. If you navigate to C:\*WebbotInstallFolder*\WebbotLib\AVR8 in command prompt (where the last part of *WebbotInstallFolder* is probably WebbotStudio-1-03b), and then run `make clean` and then `make all`, you will repeat what failed in step 0.

Note: Step 1b needs to be done if you ever build AVR code outside of webbotlib studio.  On Windows 8, step 1a allowed step 2 to work.  On my Windows 10 setup, I had to do 1b to get step 2 to work. This is probably because I have the PATH variable set differently on the two computers; I haven't had a chance to double check that this is indeed the case, though.
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Offline heliTopic starter

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #4 on: November 24, 2014, 07:04:52 PM »
Thanks Gertlex

I will try that on my 64 Bit system.
In the mean time I reloaded Windows 7, 32 bit (borrowed a start up disc) on another machine and problem solved!!!!!! Everything works!
The joys of programing I guess! The small things make all the difference.

Thanks

Offline Webbot

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #5 on: November 24, 2014, 09:18:38 PM »
Just to clarify a few things:-

WLS downloads it own AVR8 toolchain, which is currently WinAVR-20100110, into its own sub-directory of where WLS is running. Note that WLS doesn't modify the PATH environment variable but instead, when WLS kicks off the compiler etc, it does so with a new version of PATH that points to this downloaded version. Hence my copy should be used -even if you have downloaded your own copy of WinAVR.

My copy of WinAVR includes msys-1.0.dll.64 and msys-1.0.dll.32 which are 64 bit and 32 bit versions of msys-1.0.dll. Note that NEITHER of these are actually run in place. Rather WLS will copy one of these files to msys-1.0.dll before running any WinAVR tools. Bit like doing step 1a in Gertlexs comments automatically - but using copy rather than rename.

The file that is copied, and hence used, actually depends on whether you are running a 32 bit or 64 bit version of Java. If you have a 32 bit machine then you MUST be running 32 bit Java. But on a 64 bit machine you could be using either 32 bit OR 64 bit java. 

This means WLS should work with both 32 and 64 bit - I need to look further into Gertlex's comments.  It could be that the copy process is failing or the msys-1.0.dll is 'open' and doesn't get overwritten by the correct one. Note that his workaround will ONLY work if you rename the files: so that the .64 and .32 files no longer exist and hence WLS can no longer do a copy.

Hence it would really help me if you let me know what the 'JVM Type' is - as shown in the Help|About window of WLS.

Hope that help explain what is going on.

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Offline mallster

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2014, 05:10:32 AM »

Hi Webbot,

I have windows 8.1 and 64-bit machine. And my WLS says:-  JVM Type: 32 bit

Offline Webbot

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #7 on: November 25, 2014, 04:48:08 PM »
Ok - so you are running a 32 bit version of Java on a 64 bit machine.

Quick solution: download a 64 bit version of the Java JRE and change the PATH environment variable to use it. ie your PATH probably contains:C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\old-version\bin which needs changing to C:\Program Files\Java\new-version\bin.
Test it by running 'java -version'aand you should see something like:
Code: [Select]
java version "1.7.0_51"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_51-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.51-b03, mixed mode)
Where the key thing is that '64-Bit Server' agrees with your 64 bit machine.
Re-run WLS and all should be well

Am trying to fix WLS to cope with you running a 32 bit JVM on a 64 bit machine - but it ain't easy - so the above is the easiest workaround ie use a version of Java that has the same bit'ness as your CPU/OS.
Webbot Home: http://webbot.org.uk/
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Offline mallster

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #8 on: November 25, 2014, 10:05:55 PM »
Thanks Webbot all seems to be working now.  ;)

Offline Gertlex

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #9 on: November 26, 2014, 09:22:40 PM »
I too have 32 bit Java on a 64bit machine, it turns out. As always, props to Webbot :)
I

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #10 on: November 27, 2014, 08:05:56 PM »
Webbot, would this be fixable in the next WLS version? Or should I add something to the Axon FAQ to help others who have this prob?

Offline Webbot

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #11 on: November 29, 2014, 01:44:35 PM »
Webbot, would this be fixable in the next WLS version? Or should I add something to the Axon FAQ to help others who have this prob?

My main issue is I no longer have a 32 bit machine to test against !
So a 32 bit Java running on a 64 bit machine just adds extra noise.
Will i fix it - well the easiest fix will be to add something into the WLS startup so that if the bitness of your Java doesn't agree with the bitness of the cpu then to explain the problem and refuse to start.
This is probably easier then trying to fix the problem. Its probably better that folk install 64 bit Java on a a 64 bit machine as it will probably run better anyway.
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Offline Gertlex

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Re: What is the best system to work with Axon
« Reply #12 on: November 29, 2014, 04:32:43 PM »
I finally got around to actually doing a thing or two (aka compiling some code in webbotlibstudio), and with Webbot's explanation of what WLS is doing, I amend my suggestion to the following:

1)
- Per Webbot, install 64bit Java.
alternately, if you're lazy/bad
- Remove the .dll.32 version of msys-1.0, then make a copy of the .dll.64 version and rename it so that it is msys-1.0.dll.32

2) Either reinstall WLS, or do a manual rebuild of the AVR libraries in the WLS install folder.
I

 


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