eccentric turning

That sounds like a good way to go. I haven't checked yet but will the dev version remain separate from the live version if I build on the controller? Sounds like it will from your description.

Yes, if you've followed the default install everything is contained in your home folder in the ~/linuxcnc-dev folder and the default 2. 7 install is installed somewhere deeper in the bowels of Linux Thats why the rip-environment script is required to tell Linux where to find everything

That's perfect then and I'll start it on the controller now.

I've built LinuxCNC 2.8 on the controller, run the tests etc and no errors but I seem to have a problem running my standard config. It seems there's been a change in the AXIS/JOINT specs in the ini file and when I run my config the whole OS crashes to a black screen. I have made changes to the ini or at least the script converted it. What version info should I have in the config ini? I wasn't expecting this.

Crashing to a black screen is certainly unexpected.

Can you run the 2.8 sample configs that are in the linuxcnc-dev/configs folder?

Andy, I need to stop LinuxCNC from picking up the old configs as it runs the script to convert them. I'm not sure what's going on but it's pointing at linuxcnc/configs rather than the dev version. I ran out of time this evening to do more testing but the crash is pretty nasty with some sort of core dump and an unresponsive machine. I need to pull the power plug and do a hard reboot.