I can't say I have tried many Distro's, but I have just installed Ubuntu on my machine controller, and liked it so much I converted a laptop that was running slow with XP, sped it up greatly. It is a bit of a learning curve, but worth the effort in my opinion.
I haven't setup EMC yet, I don't have the time at the moment, I will once things settle down for me, but reading the manual it seems quite a capable program.
I have installed QCAD, and it seems OK as well, again haven't had much time to "play", but it saves as DXF format (among others).
Not too sure about the CAM side of things, I use DeskCNC and like it for importing DXF's and creating toolpaths, but will look at something to run in Linux, or port Desk somehow.
Russell. |