Inexpensive hardware setup: N95 Mini PC, Mesa 7I92T (Ethernet) and G540

Hi all, 

In case anyone else is interested in using inexpensive mini PCs and Mesa ethernet boards, I thought I'd share some details of my new setup. It's early days, but it seems to be working well--I'd be interested to hear about other people's experience with similar setups...

Mini PC, N95 $120 It's tiny, like 3-1/2" square!
Mesa 7192T $110 has ethernet and parallel port for the G540 (you need to build your own enclosure and supply 5v)
Gecko G540

I got the PC off Amazon:
www.amazon.com/dp/B0DGQ1P667?ref=ppx_yo2..._fed_asin_title&th=1
described as:
Mini PC Alder Lake-Ν95 (up to 3.4GHz) 4 Cores 4 Threads, Mini Computers 8GB DDR5 256GB M.2 SSD, Mini PC Dual Lan Support

Here are my somewhat cryptic notes about the configuration process. It's basically an assembly of techniques from other threads on this forum. I changed the IP address of the card from the default, but in hindsight I don't think that was really necessary.

Install linuxcnc from USB stick

Disable Turbo mode in BIOS (not sure this is really necessary)

(Note: there is no hyperthreading option in this particular machine)

Change mesa card jumper for "static IP from EEPROM"

edit /etc/network/interfaces to add static address for the card:
auto enp2s0
  iface enp2s0 inet static
    address 10.10.10.11
    netmask 255.255.255.0

sudo mesaflash --device 7I92T --addr 10.10.10.10 --write 7i92t_g540d.bin

change grub:
  isolcpus=2,3

===== At this point I was getting network timeouts. The fix for this has been posted on this forum, and is as follows: ============

Because of network latency issues it is necessary to install the dkms driver per this thread:
docs.google.com/document/d/1jeV_4VKzVmOI...ading=h.macj649sy0yq
Open a terminal window and Type the following lines: 
sudo apt update 
sudo dpkg -P raspi-firmware
sudo apt dist-upgrade
Note that the second line (sudo dpkg …) removes firmware for the raspberry pi incorrectly installed by Debian and is a bug out of our control

Type:
sudo apt update
you need to install some utilities. Type:
sudo apt install build-essential dkms 
If you have not installed a later kernel as described above install linux-headers. Type:
sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo apt install r8168-dkms 

Rob

Avoid Amazon whenever you can.

Their stuff is overpriced and often low-quality.


I recommend you install LinuxCNC from the official ISO image: www.linuxcnc.org/iso/linuxcnc_2.9.4-amd64.hybrid.iso
XFCE can be annoying tho.

NOTE: Chrome seems to download files really slowly, I recommend using cURL, wget, JDownloader, or Firefox.