Install script for linuxcnc sim 12.04LTS

This is a script I put together to install LinuxCNC on a Ubuntu 12.04LTS system. I hope it can be helpfull.
This will only install LINUXCNC as Simulator

Remove the .txt fron the end.

Hi

Nothing attached, try re-naming with a .txt extension or putting in a .zip, the upload is temperamental about extensions

regards

I'm running the script in a VM to give it a try now - there's quite a lot for it to go through so it's going to take a while...

It's surprising how different the desktop UI is on v12 to that on v10.

What is the story with getting LinuxCNC properly working on 12.04 LTS as I see that support for v10 LTS is ending very soon? I realise that there's very little stopping us from running LinuxCNC on an unsupported OS (so long as it's not connected to the Internet) but it would seem reasonable to expect it to be able to run on whatever happens to be the current LTS release.

It would be nice to not be in the same position as of all those Mach3 users 12 months from now when support for XP ends.

The last I had heard LinuxCNC was almost able to run on other systems? An I think Mach3 is able to run on more than XP now also.

You can run Linuxcnc on 12.04 (or 12.10 -11) with a 3.5.7 kernel using xenomai realtime system

I have it running as such on this computer.
The installation is non-trivial from sources but quite easy using John Morrises packages
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?XenomaiKernel

rtai-3.9.1 has just been released, which hopefully will fix some problems which prevented Linuxcnc being built against it.
I hope to test this later today.

Michael Harbeler, John Morris, John Kasunich and many others have been working on this for some time.

However it does not actually matter if 10.04 LTS support from Ubuntu runs out, what matters is whether your machine runs well with it.
I will continue to use 8.04 until my workshop machines break, it is rock solid and low latency on P4s

What a 3.x.x kernel is really needed for, is to support the newer motherboards and chipsets which simply will not run on anything older

It's surprising how different the desktop UI is on v12 to that on v10.

Yes and to my mind all Ubuntu desktops are complete s**t, this one more than most.
The first thing I do is install lxdm and iceWM and remove all the slow, hard to navigate 'wannabe tablet' crap.
But thats just me

regards

I'm glad to hear that some serious progress has been made with getting LinuxCNC running on the current release of Ubuntu.

My main worry over this (as a person who works mainly with Windows in my day job, so this may be a non issue for Linux, but it certainly isn't for Windows) is that if LinuxCNC were "left behind" and only capable of running on an older, unsupported version of the OS, then security patches etc would not be produced and the system may become vulnerable in the same manner as an unpatched copy of Windows would be. The perception then, rightly or wrongly, to potential new users would potentially be that the system is gradually dying out and they'd look elsewhere for a machine controller solution.

I certainly know that if I were looking for a Windows application and I saw that one of the alternatives on the market was only supported on XP, but not Windows 7 or 8, then I'd question the producers commitment or ability to maintain it in future.

Also, as you mention, the newer kernel is needed to support the newest chipsets & motherboards. Going forward this will be the "old" hardware that future copies of LinuxCNC will be installed upon - we won't be running single core P4's forever - so we need to keep moving, like it or not.

I think that what I'm trying to say is that we have to keep up to date, even if it's only for the reason that we need to keep people coming on board in order for the LinuxCNC controller to stay alive - it needs developers and users. Personally I'm unlikely to become a developer for the project (it's not my forte) but I certainly hope to remain a user and ongoing improvements and support will always be welcome.

As for Ubuntu desktops, being quite new to actually doing anything purposeful on Linux, I've not tried any alternatives to whatever comes as standard so far. Coming from the world according to Microsoft means that actually having a choice at all is completely novel - and even the 12.04 desktop seems highly favourable to the living nightmare that is the Windows 8/Server 2012 UI!

Tjamscad - Thanks for correcting me there - I'd not realised that Mach3 would run on 32bit Windows7 etc, so I stand corrected. (LinuxCNC is still the superior product though!)

Cheers

Ben