Additional Setup Steps for Linux

If you want to set up your application for the use on a Linux system, you have to make sure to provide the required files on your system. In addition, some further adjustments are required to run MERLIC RTE on a Linux system, for example, adjusting Windows-specific paths to fit the location on the used Linux system or configuring the images sources.

The following sections describe which files and adjustments are required in this case. When you finished these adjustments for your application, you can run MERLIC RTE on your Linux system with your MVApp and recipe.

Required Files

To run an application on Linux, the following files are required on your system.

The MVApp you want to use must be created on a Windows system. This can be an MVApp that is already in use on your Windows system or a newly created MVApp. If you installed the Linux package for the examples (merlic-26.03.0-examples.tar.gz), you can also use the provided MVApp examples. You have to provide at least one recipe file that references the MVApp to be executed. It should define the MVApp parameters you want to set while running MERLIC RTE.

In addition, you have to manually provide an INI configuration file because the archives for the installation of MERLIC RTE on Linux systems come without any INI file.

When creating MVApps and recipe files in the MERLIC Creator, all paths and settings are configured for the respective Windows system on which the application is created. Therefore, you have to make some further adjustments to fit the Linux system as described in the following sections.

Adjusting the INI Configuration File

You have to check the INI configuration file you want to use and make the following adjustments if necessary:

1. Open the INI file, you want to use when starting MERLIC RTE. If you have not yet added any INI file to your Linux system, see the section Providing the "MERLIC5.ini" File in Installing MERLIC Under Linux for more information.
2. Adjust the settings for the recipes in section [ProcessIntegration].
   • Make sure that the recipe files you want to use are listed.
   • If necessary, adjust the path of the defined recipe files to fit the location of the recipe files on your Linux system.
   • Optionally, add further recipe files to the INI file.
3. Check all other paths defined in the file, for example, the path for the log files, and adjust the paths for your Linux system, if required.

Example

If your recipe files are located in the directory "/opt/projects/MVTec/merlic/mvapp", an example INI file could look like this:

[Logging]
LogFilePath=/opt/projects/MVTec/merlic/mvapp/logs/
LogFileSizeInBytes=5242880
LogFilesCount=10
Threshold=info
UseShortFilenames=true

[ProcessIntegration]
Recipe0=/opt/projects/MVTec/merlic/mvapp/merlic_rte.mrcp
DefaultRecipe=0

[Frontend]
GuiLanguage=en_US

Adjusting the Paths in the Recipe

You need to check the paths in all MERLIC recipes you want to use on your Linux system:

1. Open the MERLIC recipe file.
2. Check the path to the MVApp and adjust it if necessary. The path must correspond to the relative path in which the referenced MVApp is located. If your relative path from the recipe file to the MVApp is still the same on the Linux system, no changes will be required.

Setting Up the Image Source

To ensure that the desired images will be acquired for your MVApp when running MERLIC RTE on the Linux system, you have to adjust the configuration of the image sources that are used in the MVApp. For this, you can use the MERLIC RTE Setup on a Windows System and connect it to your Linux system. The remote connection then allows configuring the image sources that are available on the Linux system.

1. On your Linux system, start MERLIC RTE with the command line option "--no_recipe". This is required to enable the connection from a remote system to your Linux system. The command line option is used to ensure that no recipe will be loaded even if a default recipe is specified in the INI configuration file.

   Copy

   ./merlic_rte --no_recipe

   For more information on starting MERLIC RTE on a Linux system, see Starting MERLIC RTE on Linux.

2. On your Windows system, start the MERLIC RTE Setup from the start menu or from the command line.
3. In the "Select system" dialog, connect the MERLIC RTE Setup to your Linux system as described in the section Connecting a Remote System in Selecting the System for MERLIC RTE Setup.
4. Go to the "Image Sources" tab and start configuring the images sources:
   • Add new image source configurations and image sources as required for your application.
   • Alternatively, adjust the existing configurations if there are already available image sources.

   For more information on configuring image sources, see MERLIC Image Source Manager (ISM).

5. Set the RTE startup configuration. This represents the image source configuration that will be automatically activated when MERLIC RTE starts.
   1. Select the desired image source configuration.
   2. Activate the toggle for "Use as RTE startup configuration". The RTE startup configuration will be marked with a flag icon.

      

6. When you finished setting up the image source, you can close the MERLIC RTE Setup and change back to the Linux system.

When starting MERLIC RTE as described above, the default INI configuration file "MERLIC5.ini" is used which is expected in the directory "~/.config/MVTec/". If you want to use an INI file from a different location, you should specify the desired INI file when starting MERLIC RTE for the configuration. This ensures that the image source configurations will be saved in the correct location. For more information, see Using Multiple MERLIC RTE Instances.

If you encounter any problems while connecting the MERLIC RTE Setup to your Linux system, you can check whether your firewall settings are set correctly. For more information, see the section Checking the Firewall Settings in Installing MERLIC Under Linux.