I have dual booted for a while both XP and various flavors of linux. Fedora core, Ubuntu, and others. I was recently turned onto Mandriva One, included in Linux Pro Magazine. The cd could be booted via live or via installed on hdd.

Immediately I knew there was something different with this OS, it booted quickly, didnt have issues with USB or finding my network, matter of fact Im typing this as we speak in Mandriva. I have changed my delay in keyboard to prevent multiple letters when typing.

The ultimate goal I have in mind is to prove myself wrong that Linux is not quite as stable as Windows XP for operation of CNC equipment. have read, and it seems primarily on 64 bit machines of users with various flavors having 2x or 3x clock speed. I am one of these who has a berzerk clock speed that would affect my ability to type and could affect my use of EMC via the printer port(s.)

Any experience if this may be an issue with drifting clock time/running EMC?

I'm not sure what the question is, but EMC requires either a RTLinux or RTAI kernel. I'm not sure what the 64bit support is for that.

"Drifting Clock Time".....are you speaking of the "Time of Day" clock or the clockspeed of the processor.....?

I guess with 64bit processors with rel 2.6.12 and up this has been problem. I beleive it to be a problem with the system time and not only the time of day clock.

Many have failed at patching this and others have a similar conflict with amd/ati

I am running an amd64 3500+ 2.2ghz Dual boot XP/Mandriva one based on KDE 3.4.2

found the following patch, going to set her and try reboot..... Ill let ya know results

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=113249769027262&w=2