help with LinuxCNC on Rock Pi 4B+

Hello All,

Has anyone been able to get LinuxCNC to work on a Rock Pi 4B+ or similar Rock Pi? I'm just getting started on one since I couldn't find an in stock Raspberry Pi4. I just know some basics in Linux and could use a bit of help.

Thanks everyone

I should note I'm planning on using a mesa board.

Unless there is a pre-built real-time kernel for the Rock Pi, I think you will have
to build the kernel from source (not impossible a but a bit fussy)
and build LinuxCNC from source.

Yea I haven't located one. Everywhere I look I see MX_Master posts in the forums. building a kernel is far outside my comfort zone. Armbian seems to have many distros for rock pi but not sure if any have real time kernel

It's daunting if you haven't built a kernel before.

Best way to get a hang of it is install debian in a virtual machine, get your sources, use an existing config and let it build. Install it and see how it goes. Next jump in and make a change here or there and go again.
Then add the RT_PREEMPT patch, config it for realtime and go again. Rinse and repeat a few times.

By now now you should have the hang of it. Whilst it may take a bit longer to build natively on the Rock you may find it a bit easier.

Here's quick description:
www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/9.1/chapter08/kernel.html

The Debian Way:
wiki.debian.org/BuildADebianKernelPackage

A bit more in depth:
kernel-team.pages.debian.net/kernel-handbook/

Luckily nowadays you don't have to start building the kernel at night, goto to work and then come home from work and look if it failed or not. hahaha

I think I'll just bite the bullet and pay a premium for a Raspberry PI 4. Maybe I can find another use for the Rock PI. Its too bad it seems to have nice specs and emmc which I thought would work well for the application.

Thanks for the info and I'm sure I'll be asking more once I get to actually setting this up. First I'm doing some upgrades to my cnc router, beefing it up a bit and adding hybrid steppers, then switching to linuxcnc from a black box.