stand alone hal component to control 3 steppers

Hi,
I want to run three stepper motors continuously and synchronized but at different rates with the ability to pause and restart all three simultaneously. Basically, each of two of the motors to run at a speed that may be an independent multiple of the third.

This is too simple a job for linux-cnc so I had thought that maybe it would be feasible to build a hal component that would auto start when I started my BBB. I think that could feed a reference pulse stream through dividers to get my required rates. The speed ratio between the three motors plus speed of reference pulse stream and pause / resume should be available through a simple hardware (non graphical) interface which would be basically switches and pots, or if I find it necessary a keypad + simple lcd display.

I have only ever run linux-cnc as a user and have no experience of hal I just want confirmation that this is feasible. better still if there is already a component to do what I want.

thanks
Alan