Quick EMC Question.

[ibuildstuff4u]

Can you run EMC on a Mac computer? I love my Mac and would love to have one in the shop instead of the windows computer I'm using now.

Thanks for the help!

Dale P.

[acondit]

Not yet. I tried running Ubuntu under Parallels and Ubuntu runs OK but emc2 crashes.

Alan

[ibuildstuff4u]

Bummer, my main computer is a mac and have to do all of programing down stairs in the shop. It would be nice to do the programing in the office and then transfer the file to the shop.

Thanks for the reply.

Dale P.

[jmelson]

Originally Posted by ibuildstuff4u Can you run EMC on a Mac computer? I love my Mac and would love to have one in the shop instead of the windows computer I'm using now. Thanks for the help! Dale P.

EMC requires a real time version of Linux. I don't think anyone has gotten an RT patched kernel on the Mac, but I could be wrong. Running any RT environment in a virtual machine is definitely NOT going to work well. Also, most of the motion control hardware requires either a parallel port or a PCI slot, neither of which are present on most Macs. You could run a split system, with Axis running on the Mac, and the motion control, interpreter, etc. running on the PC. This is now supposed to be fairly well documented in the EMC user's guide, I think.


Jon

[svenakela]

Originally Posted by jmelson Running any RT environment in a virtual machine is definitely NOT going to work well. Jon

A RT environment will not work at all in a virtual machine (and not on laptops either, by the way). But if you only need an EMC2 simulator on your office Mac you can probably run it in a VM. Then you don't need the real time patched kernel.

http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emc...Pure_Simulator
And if you follow the link in the bottom (Compiling/installing EMC2) you will find another link to a guide I wrote how to setup the simulator in 9.0.4 (chapter 5.4: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux...emc.user/15617).

Regards,
Sven

[roamingdrone]

Don't forget, that EMC2, at least the AXIS interface, is an X windows application. It can display on any X server. That means you can install an X server for Mac (Hummingbird Xceed is one that I used to use, IIRC) - and then set your display on your linux shell to be the remote address of your mac box running the X server.

Voila - you can now run EMC2 on your Mac, but it's really running on the Linux box downstairs =)

!c

[linuxstep1]

EMC2 always needs Linux with RTAI real time extension, but the UI can use a remote X-window system, and run on any computer which supports remote X-Window . Here is a link how to do that for MS windows (in german):http://www.cncecke.de/forum/showthread.php?t=45303
I guess its similar for MAC.
BTW: EMC2 runs fine on my old Dell Latitude laptop with 15 usec latency, after applying the SMI patch http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emc...ixingSMIIssues Without the patch, latency was 1.1 msec.

regards, Gerd

[acondit]

I don't know about anyone else, but my goal is to just run emc2 on my macmini in my office so that I can proof gcode in Axis (without having to fire up the boxes out in the shop). I am not trying at this point to control the machines.

Alan

[roamingdrone]

Originally Posted by acondit I don't know about anyone else, but my goal is to just run emc2 on my macmini in my office so that I can proof gcode in Axis (without having to fire up the boxes out in the shop). I am not trying at this point to control the machines. Alan

You should be able to run it in simulated mode then. Otherwise, you can still proof it remotely from the linux box by pointing it to a local X server on the mac. You don't need to actually control the machine, can run simulated on the linux box, but with the UI displayed on your mac.

!c

[linuxstep1]

In any case you need a linux box, to run EMC, also in simulation mode, without a machine. AFAIK no way around.

[acondit]

Originally Posted by linuxstep1 In any case you need a linux box, to run EMC, also in simulation mode, without a machine. AFAIK no way around.

I have Linux running on my Mac, it just won't support RTAI under Parallels. So the question for me is does it run in sim mode without RTAI.

Alan

[linuxstep1]

Originally Posted by acondit I have Linux running on my Mac, it just won't support RTAI under Parallels. So the question for me is does it run in sim mode without RTAI.

see links in Svens post below. Could be you can install a simulator without RTAI.

regards, Gerd