Zenbot/Gecko/LinuxCNC?

I do not know about gmoccapy as i do not use it, but i know and i use the same image on 4 usb drives and 2 machines and i had no issues ever. It just works, always using Axis GUI.
I have only one single problem with Linuxcnc, i do not have enough time to build and configure all the machines it can easily control, and implement all the possibilities it has, i would need 70 hour days for that.
I am aware this is not useful to you, so moving on,
If you can, buy an older desktop PC if you do not already own one, install it and have a go at it. You can use that same PC for controlling the machine later on. Using laptops to control machines is not advisable due to too many power saving options. Most laptops do work, but some just do cause to much latency errors.
As for Windows vs Linux and everything that goes with them, after over 20 years of experience and working for the biggest organizations in the world as an IT hardware expert, there is nothing to compare there, windows lost that war a long time ago, it just takes some time for people to give it a try ..... and never go back to windows.

If I want to follow rodw's instructions above, which ISO do I start with ("the ISO" referred to in the post). Also, what buildbot page has these instructions about "stanzas"?

Probably more questions to follow. The instructions are still far from clear. The thread referred to is awfully terse as well. But it may make sense once I'm sitting in front of a working base OS.

If I can get this working, I'm going to need to know how to create my own ISO from my working install. I'll be configuring all of this on my Mac in a VM. I'm not going to turf the Windows install on my CNC laptop until I get much closer to a working setup. So once I get Gmoccapy working in sim mode on the Mac VM, I need to create an ISO from that. If that is not straightfoward, I've got a problem.

I've already given you the link to the buildbot on this post earlier in this thread. Did you look at it?
forum.linuxcnc.org/38-general-linuxcnc-q...xcnc?start=30#108237
You don't need to worry about ISOs any more as you have the right OS with a preemptive kernel installed (based on a previous post of yours)
To save your LinuxCNC configs to move to a new machine, all you need to do is to copy the ~/linuxcnc/config folder.
Creating your own ISO is not trivial and is not necessary. Leave that to the dev team.

All you have to do is to do a software upgrade in Linux. This is done with apt_get from the command line or Synaptics from the GUI.
Linux software is stored in various repositories around the world. Whilst the Linux distro you have installed will keep all of its own files on its own repository, some projects (like LinuxCNC) are not part of the distro so you need to tell your copy of Linux where to look to find LinuxCNC which is the purpose of the stanza I quoted. (stanza is the buildbot term, not mine)

Sorry, I reread this thread and had forgotten that you were just running from the ISO without having installed Linux on a PC.
Lets start again.
The only ISO you could get to boot happened to be an experimental image. This will be good to use on real hardware with Mesa ethernet cards. However, it does not support the older v 2.7 version of gmoccappy.

For evaluation purposes, running from the USB stick, you really should be using the official V 2.7 iso on this page under the heading normal download
linuxcnc.org/docs/2.7/html/getting-start...etting-linuxcnc.html

On this version, the dependency issue will not be a problem and Gmoccapy will work fine.

As posted earlier, I think the solution to getting this to boot is to find a Windows machine, install win32diskimager, download the official ISO, rename it so it has a .IMG extension and burn to a USB stick using win32diskimager. That should boot reliably and is the way I create all of my bootable images becasue I've had so many problems getting things to boot in the past (not just Linuxcnc).

Give it a go and report back. If it fails, you really need to take your own advice and find another PC.

The first thing that happens after I install wheezy (I'm doing this first on my Mac in a VM, I'll get to real HW later) is that I'm asked whether I want to install 293 updates. Yes, no, or some of them?

jandyman wrote: If I want to follow rodw's instructions above, which ISO do I start with ("the ISO" referred to in the post). Also, what buildbot page has these instructions about "stanzas"?

You should really use the wheezy ISO as it is a fully functional version, the stretch version has still testing in it's name that implies there may still be bugs lurking there. Also you do not need the latest version of Linuxcnc referred to as Master or 2.8, since you will be using it on a mill.
The list of builds and versions of Linuxcnc is at buildbot.linuxcnc.org

jandyman wrote: If I can get this working, I'm going to need to know how to create my own ISO from my working install. I'll be configuring all of this on my Mac in a VM. I'm not going to turf the Windows install on my CNC laptop until I get much closer to a working setup. So once I get Gmoccapy working in sim mode on the Mac VM, I need to create an ISO from that. If that is not straightfoward, I've got a problem.

Creating an ISO from a working environment can be done in several ways, using DD ( command line, comes with every version of Linux), using "Systemback" ( easily installed, Graphical interface, very easy to use and works very well ), etc.
Using VM should be the last resort.
You can install Linux (any version) besides windows and choose at boot time what you want to use, without removing windows or loosing anything already there, but it is a bit risky as a single mistake during installation will wipe everything.
Actually, you do not need to crate an ISO at all, all it takes is to copy a single folder to have everything backed up regarding Linuxcnc and the actual folder to back up is always named Linuxcnc.