Gantry oxyfuel / plasma type machine from scratch

Dislexic

The idea of starting with and virtual environment is just because i still have no dedicated machine, and to not to loose time learning and testing various GUIs to see how I will be doing the workflow of the production of the pieces , configurations and other stuff which is not really related on 
testing servos and other hardware things. This will permit me to get more comfortable with the software.

You can not test servos and other hardware from a virtual box, but you can from a live session when booting from USB.

Hi another question from my side is in case I have to replace the servo drives and motors, as it seems that they have lost them, which brand would be the best one to go ? Also in that case would it be worth going directly with EtherCAT type of drives ?

Depends on budget, good ones are from Yaskawa and Delta, all the way down to cheap china ones that do work, but getting there might be very hard as usually they are not tested or tuned to the motor you get.
I am still skipping EtherCAT due to feedback latency issues.

Tommy thanks. So Yaskawa would be preferred correct ? What kind of latency issues are there with EtherCAT ? Is it on the LinuxCNC side or due to network ?