Best version of linux and EMC

[roni21702]

I am new to EMC and I would like to know what you guys suggest. I have a AMD 533 pc with 128 mb ram that I would like to use. I would like to know the best version of EMC and Linux to use. I also need a very easy install as I know nothing about Linux at this time. Any one with ideas pleae pass them along. I have a PC with Xandros installed on it can I use this and just install EMC on it. Please explain how I will do this. Thank you and hope to hear from you soon.

[wizard]

My suggestion would be BDI. That is the Brain Dead Install of EMC on Linux. This is a distro that will install Linux, the realtime kernel and EMC on your machine.

Xandros is Linux from what I know. It is likely to be possible to install EMC on it. In your case I would not reccomend this at all, building the realtime kernel, the associated librarys and EMC in one shot for somebody with limited Linux expereince would be a job and a half.

Go the BDI route, do realize though that your PC will loose everything on its harddrive as you wll likely want to do a clean install on an older machine like this. As for howto, just follow the instructions at the BDI web site. There are other distros besides BDI that have EMC on it, check out the EMC web site for more info.

Be aware that BDI is Debian based Linux, this is not what I favor. Instead I prefer the Redhat/Fedora based distros. If this was a Linux thread that would create heated discussions, it is not and I hope everyone realizes that DBI is the easy way to get into EMC.

If you really want to learn about CNC and realtime control you can consider building everything from source possibly on your Xandros distro or on another distro. It is a good way to learn about Linux and some of the advanced CNC concepts, just don't expect it to be a quick path to success.

You also need ot consider compatability. Linux has difficulty with non mainstream hardware and EMC just makes things a bit worst. Something to consider, older hardware is generally better but there are gotchas out there.

Thanks
Dave

[rippersoft]

As an alternative to reformating the hard drive, you can use a "live CD" version of linux which runs from a CD and does not require the use of the hard drive. This will give you an opportunity to try before you reformat.

CoolCNC is a Puppy Linux distribution with EMC2 and Axis GUI interface for EMC2. It can be downloaded at http://cooltool.he.fdread.org/cncfor...wforum.php?f=4 .

You will need to burn a CD with this ISO. The CD you create from the ISO is bootable. Put it into the CD of the machine to test with and reboot. Puppy Linux will run.

Documentation at http://www.thecooltool.com/files/coolcnclinux-en.pdf .

RipperSoftware

[vacpress]

ubuntu is the recomended linux for EMC2.

I installed it dual boot, and although it insists on booting ubuntu instead of winxp first(and i cannot change it, and its killing me) it was quite easy to install, and worked right away on an obscure laptop... that was impressive..

ubuntu looks fairly nice, and it is free.. www.linuxcnc.org

[mjarus]

vacpress,

I use Linux quite a bit, but never used Ubuntu. Does it come with lilo or grub? These will allow you to select your partition at bootup. How do you get to the XP partition if you cannot boot it? Do you mean that Ubuntu is the default option? That is easy enough to change... if it is lilo just modify the lilo configuration file. I can help if needed.

mjarus.

[unterhaus]

According to the links I found on google, ubuntu uses grub, so you should be able to go into /boot/grub and edit grub.conf

[vacpress]

ubuntu is the default option, all the editing commands do not seem intuitive or even working.. when i go into the edit mode, it dosent have any option for 'boot order'.. it is hard to explain.. im not sure if it is grub, but i know it isnt lilo... ubuntu is default, it gives me 7 seconds to choose a partition. if i dont babysit my bootup(hard to do for some reason) it boots into ubuntum, therey wasting ~5 minutes..

i hate how linux software STILL dosent have very good front-end configuration editing.. its really lame that a supposedly 'easy to use' version of linux dosent have an intuitive way to choose boot order. the VERY FIRST thing you encounter with ubuntu is counter intuitive!

linux is like dealing wioth the government. its suppsoed to be free, and hold great potential, but the only people who enjoy dealing with it are those who make alot of money off it, have years of experience, and are willing to put up with more than just a few hassles...

and for those who say 'i run linux just fine'

whatever.

[unterhaus]

My suggestion is to let it boot into ubuntu, open a text editor, and edit /boot/grub/grub.conf

There's a line in there that says something like Default 0
You want to change that to the number of windows, counting from the first option as zero. It's pretty trivial.

There are some things in linux that really drive me crazy, particularly wireless networking. The windows way just works now after a few less than perfect tries. I feel like I should get college credit every time I set up a wireless network on a linux computer.

choosing the boot order in Windows is exactly the same procedure, but very few people know how to do it. Except I forgot, if windows was easy, they'd let you choose to boot into linux. So it's only easy after you forget you wanted to do that. I can't really fight in the O.S. wars though, I currently hate the big 3 operating systems equally. That's not really being far to Apple, but the G4 I bought at work really drove me crazy, particularly that stupid one button mouse where you had to press down the whole mouse to push the button -- arrrrgh! The only thing that keeps me positive about linux is the people that supply it don't treat me like a criminal.

[leberen]

The problem with linux is its original intent was networking, not some fancy GUI (Graphical User Interface) to play around in. This is why its always "thinking" and processing, it has to now. Microsoft has done all the work to focus on GUI. Linux was developed by those who want freedom from digital rights, while community is the best way to do so. If you want a dependable system, you get what you pay for.... and you dont pay for linux fedora or gnome (yet) It is still experimental for now. Use Windows until most bugs are worked out and/or become active in the Linux Community.

[wizard]

I find it a bit funny and perplexing that people have such a high opinion of ubuntu as frankly I find it to be one of the worst distro avaialble. This from an attempt to install a 64 bit AMD version about a year and a half ago. So much of ubuntu didn't work, worked poorly or was poorly concieved that I reformatted the disk within a two weeks. I have not seen indications that these problems have been addressed in later versions either.

Now this may reflect my back gorund a bit and the fact that I've experimented with just aobut every Linux distro available. Once had a PC set up just for doing installs of new distros, so when I rank ubuntu where I do it is not without a basis to work from.

Went back to Fedora on my main machine and haven't had a significant issue since. For the PC I got to do CNC on, it is my intention to use BDI. That may change of course, every thing is subject to change, but I believe that BDI is the easy route to a CNC controller. A controller that is stable and compatible with a good repository.

For a computer novice, for many of the same reasons, there is no better choice than the BDI distro. It is a Debian variant which is a mixed bag, but a lot fo effort has been put into getting the configuration to work well. The install is straight forward and elminates a host of problems related to getting EMC and the realtime system up and running. Yes; I do realize that much work has been put into taking the difficulty out of bringing EMC up especially EMC2, but for somebody whos focus is not computers it is still a task.

ubuntu is the default option, all the editing commands do not seem intuitive or even working.. when i go into the edit mode, it dosent have any option for 'boot order'.. it is hard to explain.. im not sure if it is grub, but i know it isnt lilo... ubuntu is default, it gives me 7 seconds to choose a partition. if i dont babysit my bootup(hard to do for some reason) it boots into ubuntum, therey wasting ~5 minutes..

Well I already laid out my opinion of ubuntu so I can only offer suggestions. First figure out what bootloader is being used. Then read the associated man pages. If it is grub it is not that difficult ot get a handle on things.

i hate how linux software STILL dosent have very good front-end configuration editing.. its really lame that a supposedly 'easy to use' version of linux dosent have an intuitive way to choose boot order. the VERY FIRST thing you encounter with ubuntu is counter intuitive!

First in a sense I understand your concerns about GUI's for such configurations but then I have to say that grub isn't that difficult. Use vim/gvim for editing. Now you have me off track here agian with ubuntu, I'd strongly suggest getting rid of it, even if that means more effort to get EMc to run. You seem to be haivng issues with ubuntu that I had over a year and a half a go - not a good sign. The problem is that ubuntu causes more problems as far as a Linux distro goes than it solves. You are far better off using a text editor on another system to conifgure you installation than you are relying on ubuntu to do anything right or in a generally accepted manner. Given that other distros are coming along with better tools for GUI configuraiton I can not see a reason to continue with ubuntu.

linux is like dealing wioth the government. its suppsoed to be free, and hold great potential, but the only people who enjoy dealing with it are those who make alot of money off it, have years of experience, and are willing to put up with more than just a few hassles...

That is not really true. When I disposed of ubuntu, on my 64 bit desktop, and went with Fedora 4 alot of my problems went away. Now that is something because Fedora is not suppose to be a stable distro as it is more of a development platform. The only thing that has been a problem on Fedora 4 since I installed it has been the Eclipse installation and I just repalced that with a download from Eclipse.

Now I know it may seem pretty bad to some but the alternatives are a lot worst. Especially if you intend to install many applications. Windows really sucks here and XP hasn't improved that enough. Do non-trivial software installations on Windows and you will have more troubles than Linux offers.

Unfortunately my interest/free time have not allowed me to do the Linux installs like ai did a couple of years ago. So I don't know where other distros lay with respect to configuration. I haven't even updated to Fedora 5 yet. What I do know is that a lot of work has gone into the major distros much of it to make for a better user experience. So don't discount Linux because of ubuntu, it is a distro that obviously has a promotional effort behind it to overcome the reality that it is crap. Just resist the marketing drones!

and for those who say 'i run linux just fine'

I'm not sure what that means. Linux does run fine. Sure it has a different software base than does Windows but that doesn't mean anything at all. The problem is that people run linux and expect it to work like Windows, sorry but it doesn't and never will. Just like there are people that cna use Apples OS/X to great benefit over Windows so can Linux users. In either case though to realise that beneift requires a little effort to move oneself beyond the mainstream. In the case of Linux there is a little effort required and if you are not willing to wrap your head around it you will continue to not get it. Frankly the effort to run Linux is less than that required to keep a Windows installation running.

whatever.

Best of luck with your system.

Dave

[leberen]

I have to agree with wizard, I have installed the most recent 64 bit distro of Ubuntu with little success. I also went back to Fedora, which seems to have the best options. BDI had a really nice base behind it, I cant find the distro I had before and my cd was scratched so it wouldnt install the cad program. Mind this is a dual boot system, so all of my cnc is done in windows but no hurt in experimenting. Mach 3 is great, after the battle of learning the curve.

I also strongly agree with Wizard that LINUX WILL NEVER EVER EVER be like windows, thats the point. Keep in mind 64 bit technology can strongly change the way Linux behaves in the future. The 64 bit of ubuntu sucks PERIOD. Wizard, here's to you for your clarifications

leberen

[wizard]

Yep I don't understnad those that want Linux to be just like Windows, it makes no sense at all. You don't see Apple users running around hoping that their platform will become more like Windows. For me the whole idea behind running Linux, any of the Distros that I have at the moment, is that I don't have to deal with Windows. That and the fact that in many ways I get a signifcantly better environment than Windows offers. The final plus is that I'm not help make one person filthy rich but rather helping many to make a decent liviing.

In any event I can not reccomend ubuntu for any reason, and it is not just the 64 bit version that I have toruble with. The whole thing is just plain odd. So for people that want easy go BDI. Otherwise install on your favorite distro.

Dave

I
I also strongly agree with Wizard that LINUX WILL NEVER EVER EVER be like windows, thats the point. Keep in mind 64 bit technology can strongly change the way Linux behaves in the future. The 64 bit of ubuntu sucks PERIOD. Wizard, here's to you for your clarifications

leberen