Which UI?
I wanted to know how much the people who are responsible for maintaining LinuxCNC keep it up to date, and now I know.
And this is what I gently warned you about near the beginning of this thread.
There is nobody responsible for maintaining LCNC. There are no gate-keepers approving or denying modifications, updates, features, etc. If you have a problem, or a desire to change/add something, there is no star-chamber group of people who are obligated to sort it out for you or will stop you from making changes.
And unlike every commercial controller out there, if you propose something nobody else likes you could, in theory, make a 'fork' of LCNC and modify it to your heart's content. The problem then becomes one of capability and time.
I agree that some characteristics of LCNC are the result of decisions made (long ago) by people who are/were not professional machinists. However, I don't know many professional machinists who are also capable of writing CNC control software from scratch... and have the time to spend doing so with no compensation.
Dual-channel control? Who can write the code and who also has a multi-axis machine to test it on? The further you get from 'simple', the fewer people there are who have an incentive to invest the time to accomplish whatever 'complicated' looks like. Is it reasonable to expect half a dozen people scattered across the globe to invest 6 months (or more) of their free time to develop a feature which very, very few people will ever use?
In my case I have accepted the fact that I am, generally, at the mercy of the computer-smart people who are part of the LCNC community and rely on them for assistance. I can't write code, so I try to help out the community with those topics where I have a bit of experience... and keep fingers crossed that one of the 'puter-ninjas will take pity on me when I need something I can't sort out.
Beggars, as they say...
I agree with Tommy - you sound like someone frustrated with the control options available. I think I even read the Centroid forum thread where you got blasted for suggesting that the two bottom buttons on the Acorn UI were dumb, and it was dumber that they couldn't be modified. (I agree, BTW)
You want a controller that isn't dumb, isn't a cartoon, has no significant bugs, and has some features which you consider common to most industrial controllers.
My suggestion, which I hesitated to offer earlier, is that LCNC is probably not going to be your cup of tea. Unless you have a very simple machine, and don't require any changes from a 'stock' UI included in the samples, LCNC itself will likely become something of a hobby - which you've indicated is not desirable.
GSK offers commercial controllers at a reasonable price (compared with a Siemens turn-key system, that is) that have most of the features I suspect you value.
gskcncusa.com/collections/cnc-controllers
If you decide otherwise - that you'd like to have a go at LCNC - then there are certainly people who can help you navigate it.
Before you leave and you should you might want to know that your assumptions are totally wrong. The NIST created EMC the Enhanced Machine Control project as it was called in the beginning in response to industry needs. When EMC was released to the public a very hard working team of VOLUNTEERS worked thousands of hours to bring LinuxCNC what it is today. And also note that Tormach paid a programmer to improve the trajectory planner of LinuxCNC and create their custom GUI so they could use it in all their machines.
Product bashing and complaining is not going to get you anywhere here.
I am giving a back-of-the-envelope assessment of what I saw with my own eyes. I have no expectation of a reward.The quickest way of changing things in LinuxCNC is to modify it yourself. Because with LinuxCNC you can.
Understood.
Remember, I am the very definition of an outsider here. I have poked a stick at LinuxCNC, to see what its defenders have to say about it, and I think I have enough information now. My takeaway is that development was abandoned decades ago, after someone with limited industrial experience graduated from the class they wrote it for as a project. Its online community has convinced itself that their baby is awesome and it's your fault for wanting something a little different. It's free so if you want something more polished, then the door is right there - don't let it hit you on the way out!
Fair!
I don't want to spoil your party.
The party is over with I'm locking this thread.
JT