Need help with component selection

Hytek wrote: After a bit more research I have narrowed it down to a Mesa 5i25 & 7i76 combination.

If the PC you end up using has PCIe slots you also use the 6i25+7i76 combos That can open more possibilities for newer PC candidates.

Thanks very much for the advice

After testing my way through the motherboards & stuff I have around I have settled on:
Gigabyte GA-H61M-S2PV motherboard
Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz
Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB @ 1866Mhz
Radeon 7470 2GB Low Profile GPU
160GB SSD
I know some of this is overkill but working with what I have laying around

Unfortunately to keep a small to form factor, (want to keep everything in the same cabinet) the motherboard only has 1 PCIe slot, which will be taken up with the graphics card. Also, I have already ordered the 5i25 & 7i76

Just going back to 4. Run Linuxcnc on startup

I just can't find a reference for you , but there is a command line switch to tell Linuxcnc to run the last config used. (Might be /l)
So you can set that up as a startup command. Alternatively you can pass an ini file as a parameter instead.

I found running the last config worked for me as I worked through hundreds of configs in my journey. It always opened the last one I was using. I also created a shortcut with this parameter that sits on the desktop.

Thanks for the info rodw.

In my many hours of researching, while I wait for my mesa delivery to arrive. I have also stumbled across some info on how PathPilot does it. Though I doubt it is as simple as it appears on these videos etc. Especially as I am pretty much a noob when it comes to Linux.

Being as the topic of motherboard was brought forward (by me) I might as well ask. When testing the parts I have laying around, I tested an Intel DH57JG motherboard I couldn't get to run great. I would have preferred to use this board as I could orient it horizontally, saving a good amount of room in my enclosure. Does anyone have any suggestions how to improve this and make it a viable option? Or is it just not a good choice being limited to the onboard graphics?

I did all the shutting down hyperthreading, power saving options etc. I did not go as far as only enabling 1 core, above my scope of abilities

Most onboard graphics will work fine with Linuxcnc, there are some issues with some Nvidia cards, not all.
Do not know about disabling cores as i never ever done that, i use all of them all the time.
Disabling Hyperthreading is a must, it was and is such a useless feature that i am baffled at why it is still in some new proccesors!

rodw wrote: I just can't find a reference for you , but there is a command line switch to tell Linuxcnc to run the last config used. (Might be /l).

linuxcnc -l

Which I expected to find here:
linuxcnc.org/docs/2.7/html/man/man1/linuxcnc.1.html

But it isn't mentioned.
It is in the "usage" in the actual source file of the "linuxcnc" startup script
github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master...ipts/linuxcnc.in#L99