Distributions, File Naming and Versioning Schemes of Releases

The RTSS package is distributed as source code and as prebuilt binaries for several platforms. The distributions are packaged as a ZIP file for Windows platforms and as a gzipped tar file for GNU/Linux platforms. They include:

• Stable: stable and well tested software.
• Testing: software that is intended to become part of the next stable distribution.

The following file naming scheme should help the user to see which file release best suits his or her needs:

• rtss-M.m.r-src: source code distribution, with build instructions.
• rtss-M.m.r-win32: the prebuilt distribution for Win32 Systems.
• rtss-M.m.r-lnx32: the prebuilt distribution for GNU/Linux systems 32-bit.

The versioning scheme works as follows:

• M: the major version. It is increased when there are significant jumps in functionality. All versions with the same major number use compatible data structures. Versions with different major version numbers may use incompatible data structures.
• m: the minor version. It is incremented when only minor features or significant fixes are added.
• r: the revision number. It is incremented when only a significant set of minor bugs is fixed. Effectively, a revision release is pure bug fix release.

Download RTSS

All releases of RTSS are available for download through the SourceForge.net File Release System (FRS).

The current stable release of RTSS is numbered 0.3.0. It does not work on Windows Vista systems and runs smoothly under the old Scilab-4.1.2 only. Users interested in running the stable RTSS with ScicosLab have to check the RTSS branch out from the SVN repository, as described in the Compatibility with ScicosLab-4.3 site document.

The current testing release of RTSS is numbered 1.0.0b1. Prebuilt testing RTSS is built on top of ScicosLab, therefore it requires ScicosLab to run. If, for some reason, the user needs to work with the old Scilab-4.1.2 distribution, e.g. to use the Scilab/Scicos Code Generator for Xenomai (GNU/Linux only), or another package not yet fully compatible with ScicosLab, he or she should consider to install the source version of (testing) RTSS, which works with all the versions of Scilab based on the official BUILD4 distribution. These include Scilab-4.1.2 and ScicosLab-4.3 (and furthers).

RTSS is not yet compatible with Scilab-5.x. Users are advised to read the Compatibility with Scilab-5.x article, in order to get relevant information about this topic.

After the Download

RTSS has been created following the standard method described by the Scilab guide for the toolboxes contributions. This, so that the users are able to install it with just the execution of a main builder and/or a main loader script, independently of their operating system.

The basic requirement for installing RTSS is to have Scilab (ScicosLab) installed. Users who want to install the source version of RTSS need also a C compiler. Widely adopted compilers are GCC under GNU/Linux and Microsoft Visual C++ under Windows.

Please, refer to the README file that is included in the distribution for more detailed information on installation and configuration of RTSS, and for any additional notes.

RTSS from SVN

Some users might need to check the newest RTSS code from the SVN repository. Please read RTSS from SVN, for further information about the way to accomplish that.