EPICS for the Bewildered

Installing the EPICS client under Linux

If you already have a server running and all you need to do is connect to it, here is how you can create an EPICS client under Linux. It's relatively quick and painless.

Pick a root directory for ALL of EPICS (source and everything). It will be referenced here as $EPICS (some people call this "<TOP>") [I choose to place EPICS under /opt/epics to conform to the Linux Filesystem Hierarchy standard]
At the very least, you need "baseRa.b.c" (where, for example, a.b.c = 3.14.2) and, if you are going to use any extensions, you need "extensionsConfig[ure]_<datecode>" Make sure you get the Config[ure] file for your version of EPICS. If you look at the directory structure ("extensions/config" vs. "extensions/configure"), you can run both 3.13 and 3.14 simultaneously.
N.B. Some extensions still require the "config" directories. In this case, you will need to install BOTH extensions/configure and extensions/config.
You should get ezca and EzcaScan from the same directory for a simple channel access interface.
(ezca may be slower than straight Channel Access---but EzcaScan (which provides the client programs "caget" and "caput") depends on ezca)
The source for any extensions should go under
$EPICS/extensions/src/<name-of-extension> Do a tar tvf <extension>.tar to determine where to untar it.
Now compile EPICS base. (These abbreviated instructions are for 3.14.8)
- Set the environment variable EPICS_HOST_ARCH to "linux-x86"
- cd $EPICS/base
- make (then grab a cup of coffee)
  If compilation is successful, you will have a bin, dbd, include, lib, javalib, man, startup, and templates directories. Binaries are found in $EPICS/base/bin/linux-x86
Compile the extensions
- Correct EPICS_BASE in $EPICS/extensions/config[ure]/RELEASE, then type "make" in that directory
  (you may also need to set COMPAT_TOOLS_313=YES in $EPICS/base/configure/CONFIG_SITE)
- cd $EPICS/extensions/src/<extension>
- make
- Binaries are found in $EPICS/extensions/bin/linux-x86

Add the binary directories to your path:

/etc/profile.d/EPICS.sh:

	EPICS_HOST_ARCH=linux-x86
	PATH="${PATH}":/opt/epics/base/bin/linux-x86/:/opt/epics/extensions/bin/linux-x86

	export EPICS_HOST_ARCH PATH

Congratulations! You should have a working EPICS client (be sure you compile up "caput" and "caget"---you'll want those for command-line access to PVs). How will you know? Well... you'll know when you get the server running...

(The Bird's Eye View) <-BACK | NEXT-> (Configuring a VME/vxWorks EPICS Server)