Mach3 vs LinuxCNC/EMC What do you use and why?

[audioandy]

Hi 2e0poz

Would you have time to start a thread just outlining the basic's of getting started with EMC2?
I for one would like to explore alternatives to windows and Mach but don't really have the time to sit down and try to get my head round Linux, I understand if you don't have time but I for one would appreciate the advice.

Andy

[birchy]

I must confess that despite being a Linux "fanboy", setting up LinuxCNC wasn't quite as straight forward as I had hoped. Don't get me wrong, installing the O.S. was very simple and setting up the parallel port and motors/drives was also made easy with the "stepconf wizard" but I had a few ball aches due to hardware issues. In a nutshell, LinuxCNC is a bit fussy on which hardware it likes because it uses a Realtime kernel. Although the Realtime kernel is a major advance, the downside of this "bleeding edge" technology is that it will not work well with all hardware. The whole LinuxCNC setup depends heavily on having low latency, so I would strongly recommend that anyone wanting to test LinuxCNC do so by booting the CD in "live" mode before installing it. That way, you can run the latency test and determine whether or not the PC/Hardware is suitable for CNC control. I managed to improve my latency by around 60% by removing the wifi card and using various BIOS settings but I'm a self-confessed Geek and that approach is not suitable for most users...

Would you have time to start a thread just outlining the basic's of getting started with EMC2?
I for one would like to explore alternatives to windows and Mach but don't really have the time to sit down and try to get my head round Linux, I understand if you don't have time but I for one would appreciate the advice.

Andy

Have you read the wikis? They're very informative and aimed at newbies. LinuxCNC Documentation - HTML version