Zenbot/Gecko/LinuxCNC?

jandyman wrote: 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?

Sorry, took me a while to write the above and did not notice the replies.
Again sorry, but i do not get why insist on installing and using VM, all of the Linuxcnc ISO images can be written to a USB stick and boot the computer from that USB, without installing anything, ever. And it will not do anything to already existing windows installation, it will not affect it in any way.
You can boot from the USB, make a new config, edit any existing config, test anything and everything, save anything you like to another USB ( you can save to the existing hard drive, or to the USB used to boot but it takes a bit of know how ).
When booting from the USB, choose LIVE.

Didn't know you could modify a configuration and save back to a USB stick and have that new USB be bootable. Is it obvious how to do that?

And in any case, what about the 293 potential updates to the wheezy from the Getting Started page?

I would just ignore the updates as this won't be a permanent installation. It was working when the ISO was created so it still work without the intervening updates.

Following the instructions on the thread, its says "disable the 2.7 version" after booting the ISO. I see no way to do this with Synaptic Package Manager. I see a number of LinuxCNC packages, but "disabling" does not seem to be something I can do with them. And from my previous Linux experiences (admittedly months old at this point), that sounded like a foreign term.

jandyman wrote: Following the instructions on the thread, its says "disable the 2.7 version" after booting the ISO. I see no way to do this with Synaptic Package Manager. I see a number of LinuxCNC packages, but "disabling" does not seem to be something I can do with them. And from my previous Linux experiences (admittedly months old at this point), that sounded like a foreign term.

In the post on the previous page where I said "Lets Start again", I said

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

So if you followed the instructions on that post and used the release iso on the Linux web site I linked to, gmocappy should work without you touching anything at all at this point. Have you tried?

Just did. Had some problems in a VM, so I tried the laptop. The good news is that the ISO booted properly, though it did seem to be complaining about not finding an ethernet card. Also I was able to bring up Gmoccapy without the gst module error. I was able to jog around and sucessfully zero the axes independently. The X/Y/Z display is sensible, unlike Axis.

The bad news is the the graphics had scaling issues on my screen (1920 x 1080). Buttons overlapped. Text was rendered in obviously the wrong size in places. The keyboard jog didn't work, but based on the error in the terminal window, that is probably a setting. I tried open up the settings dialog, but it wanted some access code.

So we're closer to a good Gmoccapy demo, frustratingly close in that we are still not there. Also I'm curious how would do auto touch off based on a probe in -Z, -X, +X, -Y, and +Y directions, with the touch off plate or bit diameter built into the process.