Wes wrote:

Winston wrote:

(...)

Is SATA undesirable for a specific reason?

I always got an irreconcilable error when trying to install to SATA.
I hear that others have tried it with varying degrees of success.
(Something about not having an appropriate SATA driver in the distro?)

I'm an incomplete noob about this stuff, so it doesn't take much to
stop me. OTOH I got over 3^6 hits just now with the phrase 'Ubuntu SATA',
So others appear to have some difficulty too.

I checked many PCs using EMC2's Latency Test which is a program that determines the
length of time it takes to re-establish Real Time control after an OS event.

Make that 'Interrupt event' instead of 'OS event'.

Most of the PCs failed miserably because they held off RTC Linux for far too long.

I eventually rigged up a little computer that had all the right characteristics.
Please see the linuxcnc.org site for hardware recommendations so you don't have
to waste your time as I did.

I was planning to shop goodwill for a suitable box OR buy a new one and recycle one of my
boxen.

You can run from the CD first to check latency and compatibility without
overwriting your existing disk image. Sometimes I just replace the disk and
write linuxcnc on to a spare drive.

(...)

* Hardware Maintenance
Cooling fan speed adjustment
ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) control
Battery monitoring

* Rootkits and key loggers that are invisible to all debugging tools because
the vicious programs run during a time slice that is OS-free. I'm not kidding.


I just learned something I didn't know.

'1984' was overdue, but it's been here for years.

There is rumored to be an EMC2 workaround that clears the BIOS bit, which turns off
the SMI. Of course this can bake your CPU because the fan speed is under BIOS
control via the SMI; and that just went away. Oh Well, time to strap the CPU fan
permanently at max RPM via the SOLDER programming language.



Yeah, use the 'Bridge' command, without arguments.

Let me say that the latest edition of EMC2 is orders of magnitude easier to use
than were the earliest editions. They in turn were 'way easier to use than the
original distributions of Real Time Linux. Any UNIX command - line experience you
have will be *extremely* valuable in saving time using EMC2.


I've been keeping an eye on EMC for over a decade. Back then I was impressed to see linux
used that way but had little experience around cnc equipment other than a waterjet system
I programmed in the late 80's.

Linux CNC is addictive Big Fun!

My command line skills sometimes resemble an old man with a walker but I eventually get
there.

We're *all* learning. You'll eventually find that your fingers know what to do
even though *you* may not be entirely sure. Couple days ago, I was curious about
the contents of a ".ini" configuration file. My fingers had it up in the
'vi' editor before I had time to think. (OK, *That* was weird.)

Having said that, I would not be surprised to learn that there are EMC2 users
with only very cursory knowledge of UNIX that get along just fine.

I'm sorry. What was the question?

You answered it just fine Winston.

I'd be happy to send you a tested boot CD, burned with the latest ISO, Wes.
("The First One's Free" he rasped..)


--Winston