switching from parport to mesa 7i96 -- check my assumptions

I'd like to eliminate my dependence on the "mill PC", which is still running Wheezy and some ancient LinuxCNC release.  So I'm considering a 7i96, so I can do things across the network.  But to be sure I'm not blind-sided by some bad assumption, a couple of questions:

I have custom code in the servo-thread currently.  (My X/Y axes aren't square, and the code corrects for that.)  Will this continue working, i.e., does that part of motion control remain in linuxcnc, and not in the 7i96?

Will I still need a real-time kernel?  Can I run linuxcnc from...  anything?  My laptop?

Will things like surface probing, and probed touch-off, still work, assuming the right configuration of a couple of the 7i96 inputs?

Anything else I should know about this transition?

paul

Thanks!

I guess I'm a little confused about the real-time part. Somehow I thought going to a Mesa board would eliminate the need for doing jitter and latency tests and measurements. Sounds like all it's doing is letting me locate the PC some distance from the mill. If the PC still has real-time constraints, are there constraints on the network as well? Can the ethernet be a shared network, or must it be point to point?

Thank you. I was clearly fantasizing that the mesa card would give me the power of linuxcnc and the ease of deployment of grbl. Silly me.

The hardest part of working with the parallel port is getting the latency down as you have 2 threads going and the fact the base thread is usually 25000 ns for decent stepper speed .
With a mesa setup you only need a servo thread running at 1ms. Getting the latency right is far less work, usually it's good right out of the box. You'll find you machine moves more smoothly, due to the stepper signals being generated by hardware.
It's all plus plus, mesa is well supported on the forum, Pete is an absolute gent, mesa products are rock solid and quite expandable via their Smart serial interface.
I know most people on the forum will recommend Mesa, but the thing is they are that good.

That's all excellent to hear. I pulled the trigger and ordered one this afternoon, after I realized that my mill PC was not only out of date by years, but also not upgradeable, since it's a 32-bit machine. I have a spare RPi 4 that I'll try with the 7i96. If I'm not happy with that (unlikely), I'll pick up a used small form-factor PC.

paul

RPi4 will be cool (as much as learned colleague Tommy isn't a fan ), but I would do this slight mod to the image, sorry I missed this when creating it, any other issues blame me. One user had an issue with GMOCCAPY locking up after a period of idleness.
If it was a choice between buying an RPi (5 would be the best choice out of the lot) I'd recommend as SFF pc, better bang for buck.
forum.linuxcnc.org/9-installing-linuxcnc...only?start=30#322251

If it was a choice between buying an RPi (5 would be the best choice out of the lot, blazingly fast with an NVME drive) I'd recommend a 64 bit PC platform, 3rd gen I5 is fine, as they are better bang for buck compared to a RPi.

Actually the whole thread is a jolly good read and tries to answer a lot. If you have an other questions be sure to add to the thread.

Does Mesa ethernet work with the RTAI kernel or just RT_PREEMPT ?

Would the 2.7.x version support a 7i96 ?