@George_Allen yeah if you get stuck log into IRC and someone will help you there. You might have to disable SMI or something. That is a bit of a gotcha but once it’s done it’s done. I’ve done it like 3 times now and I can’t even remember how I did it. Pretty much if you use an Intel CPU you have to disable SMI to get real time to work. Configuring LinuxCNC is easy now with the GUI wizard. There’s like 6 or so windows and you enter your info there. When you’re done with that away you go. LinuxCNC makes an icon that you just click on to launch it. Some people set their machines up to automatically start the CNC interface.
LinuxCNC runs on Linux but it installs everything you need to run LinuxCNC. So once you’ve installed it, it runs. The lead devs themselves don’t seem to know much about Linux. That doesn’t appear to slow them down though.
I haven’t touched any Linuxy bits on my CNC controller . All I do is transfer files to it (I use NFS share), open them up in Axis and run them. Other than that, that PC does nothing else.
It could be running any OS and it wouldn’t matter. LinuxCNC comes with a pretty bare bones Desktop Environment by default (XFCE). It ain’t much to look at. I guess you could change it but I never bothered to. They setup the menu real nice with all the LinuxCNC stuff on it too.
LinuxCNC is based on a defunct version of Debian. So you couldn’t install anything else on it now if you wanted to. At least I think the repos are all closed for that version now? It went EOL March of this year. Though LinuxCNC may host a repo? I’m just guessing because like I said I never messed with anything on that machine. In the past I’ve built LinuxCNC from scratch on another Linux distro. But this time around I just downloaded the image and ran with it.
Chris did a good job putting it together. I’m wondering what they’re going to do in the future though. Someday when I’m bored maybe I’ll try building LinuxCNC on a more current distro?
I just got done compiling the git version of FreeCAD on this PC. I did a bang up job on that but it’s running. I’ll have to see what features I have and don’t have.