Smooth Steppers are finally available in UK !

[Jonathan]

99.9% of issues with Windows "interrupting" Mach3 are power saving features

No, the majority of processor time not devoted to mach3 goes towards keeping the other >30 processes (mostly unnecessary) and many other threads ticking over with background processes. This is obvious. 99.9% is a completely fabricated figure which doesn't reflect reality at all. Additionally just look at the idle CPU useage for a windows machine and then for a Linux machine: even when doing nothing on a high end machine, windows will struggle to flatline at 0, while linux won't.

but there are no timing errors as you claim.

There are always​ timing errors, both on Linux and on Windows, the difference being they're lower on Linux. Here's another post on the subject that isn't mine:

EMC does run in a realtime kernal so all its I/O is realtime. Mach runs in a Buffered system, once the buffer runs there is little to no interaction to the pulse stream.

Mach3 will automatically set your steps/unit without entering anything but a measured distance.

I've been over this recently. This introduces a systematic error which limits the accuracy of the machine to the accuracy of what you used to measure that distance. That wizard is best used for something else entirely.

From Windows 2K on, Windows is extremely stable

Windows ME was released after windows 2k, and is very widely accepted to be exceptionally unstable, therefore your statement is wrong.

I haven't seen Windows crash in well over 10 years.

Either you don't use windows very often, or you are extremely lucky. Anyway, apparently you are under the impression that stability equates to lack of crashing. I regret to inform you that this isn't the case. Linux is simpler, lighter, and bugs get fixed a lot quicker. It stands to reason that it's more stable. If Ubuntu does appear to crash whilst running the machine, then due to the real time kernel the machine will more than likely continue running and thus not loose position.

Mach3 runs on Vista and Windows 7 as well as 2K and XP

Fair enough, perhaps I should have said "runs optimally" - Vista and 7 are both considerably heavier than XP (Vista is an absolute joke anyway).

MAch3 can do helical arcs and threadmilling too.

My apologies, Mach can do helical arcs (and therefore threadmilling without interpolating), I was misinformed.

I have not said that Mach wont work, or will definitely introduce errors, it's just inherently more likely to than LinuxCNC, hence I advise trying both.