I am looking at the various options of control for my CNC mill, and LinuxCNC looks very appealing, especially as it has feedback back to the main processor, which I believe gives a true closed loop control system.

I have been looking at MESA boards, and a few other sites on LinuxCNC.

Are there any guides, or can someone give advice as to what I actual require to run LinuxCNC? For example a diagram with the various MESA board for example showing what connects to what.

I see there is a lot more setting up required for LinuxCNC, is this at an in-depth computing level (I'm an engineer!!) or is this more configuring inputs/outputs?

I see there are chinese ethernet boards available

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/LinuxCNC-EMC2-ethernet-4-Axis-max-3MHz-pulse-motion-control-card-20-input-IO-8-output/32468176459.html

Are these any good?

Is setting up LinuxCNC more "plug and play" now? Not as easy as MACH3, but I see there are wizards for setting up things

Many thanks