DESCRIPTION
-----------

This directory contain files that are needed to build a debian package of the
IgH EtherCAT-Master. In contrast to IgH's method to start the master via an
init script (and unloading existing standard ethernet drivers before statup),
the config file (/etc/default/ethercat) is used by a script named
update-ethercat-config that should be called after config changes. The script
updates /etc/modules-load.d/ethercat.conf and /etc/modprobe.d/ethercat.conf
to reflect the configuration so that unneeded/unwanted standard drivers get
blacklisted and the EtherCAT drivers and master are automatically loaded at
system startup with the right parameters.

BUILD PROCESS
-------------

The build process was testet unter Debian 9 (stretch) with RT-Kernel.

to build the packages:
   # ./get_source.sh (checkout source from IGH's HG repos and build source tar)
   # cd etherlabmaster
   # dpkg-checkbuilddeps (and install missing deps)
   # dpkg-buildpackage


INSTALLATION
------------

Just do a 'sudo dpkg -i ethercat_<version>_<arch>.deb' to install the diver. After
the required config settings in /etc/default/ethercat (please take a look to
the documentation) you should run 'sudo update-ethercat-config'. Then do a
reboot or load the ec*-modules manually (see /etc/modules), the master should
now be functional.

To build the LinuxCNC EtherCAT HAL driver you also need to install the
development package with 'sudo dpkg -i ethercat-dev_<version>_<arch>.deb'

ABOUT RTAI
----------

I've decided to drop support for RTAI to be able to move quickly to recent
Debian versions and because the master code is not heavily tested against
RTAI anymore. Latency seems to be OK (at least for me) with linux-rt and
the generic driver. On the other hand you'll get a cleaner build process
with DKMS support.