Installing LinuxCNC on Debian 9 - 13

Yes, current releases of Debian are:
SID (unstable)
Bookworm v 12 (Testing)
Bullseye V 11 (Stable)
Buster (V 10) (Oldstable)

Sid (unstable) always exists
Debian 12 is currently on a hard freeze (eg nothing other than bugfixes accepted) pending its offiicial release as the next stable so it will rpelace Bullseye later this year. V10 disappears off the map, V11 becomse Oldstable and the current SID will be branched off to form Debian 13, the next Testing. Its a continual procession.

I first adopted Bullseye before it was the official release and moved to Bookworm after Linuxcnc as accepted into Debian and made it through their vetting process before it was added to SID and finally migrated into Testing (V12). I've never seen Debian itself break. 

The only downside is that Bookworm only has a snapshot of Linuxcnc v 2.9 back in about November last year so if an upgrade to Linuxcnc is required you need to build from source. This will resolve itself once Linuxcnc does its own release to V 2.9


 

Okay gotcha. Well, I may as well flash to 12 then. I noticed in your directions you say use XFCE. I recently tried out KDE and was liking it. Are there issues with desktop environments that aren’t XFCE?

There are some issues with Wayland support. It might have been fixed but using an xorg based environment like xfce just removes any chance of being bitten by it. And its also what Linuxcnc uses in their ISO. You can swap between desktops on the logon screen while you have your cursor in th epassword field by clciking on the gear icon (usually bottom right)

To install a different desktop you can:

Thanks. I’m up and running on Deb 12 with Linux CNC and KDE Plasma, decided to take the risk. Had to re-enable the AMD gpu drivers again to get rid of latency issues in LinuxCNC latency test.

With all this installing and seeing how cool Linux is, I’m wondering if anyone has a working version of linuxCNC for Mobian.

I want to thank JT for the install walk-throughs at gnipsel.com/linuxcnc/index.html . I used it to do an install of LinuxCNC 2.8.4  onto Debian10.13 (Buster) using MATE GUI.  Please don't get into why I didn't just use the pre-packaged ISO... 

One problem with his direction when it gets to 'required dependencies in Debian 9 (Stretch)' arose:  gnipsel.com/linuxcnc/debian-10-emc.html. Stretch isn't recognized as a repository any more, so you won't get the python-gtksource2 file you need.  GDEBI won't complete a package install through Synaptics Package Manager.

Instead, go here:  linuxcnc.org/docs/html/getting-started/getting-linuxcnc.html .  Follow the instructions below 7.1. Installing on Debian Buster (with Preempt-RT kernel).LinuxCNC Archive Signing Key into my apt keyring

Mods might like to give consideration to unstickying this thread. It is now obsolete.

The current official installation method is now in the V 2.9 docs and described here for Debian Bookworm (Debian 12) under the Getting Linuxcnc chapter. linuxcnc.org/docs/2.9/html/getting-start...etting-linuxcnc.html
and further described in this thread
forum.linuxcnc.org/9-installing-linuxcnc...c-on-debian-bookworm

Installing Linuxcnc on Debian 9 - 11 can be installed from the new buildbot
buildbot2.highlab.com/

Once this change is pushed to the getting Linuxcnc chapter, we will be able to document the process as it will just require a single line of code.
github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/2529  

Debian 13 (Trixie) can also be installed in the same way as Debian Bookworm (12) but there is no compelling reason to use this Testing version given Bookworm is released as stable.

Note that Sid has advanced to Debian14 if you must give it a number. I wouldn't. Sid is always Sid!

Further to this, all of the supported versions can be supported by  a single command

just change bookworm to bullseye etc and 2.9-uspace to master-uspace to choose between 2.9 and master
Ref: buildbot2.highlab.com/
and this PR
github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/pull/2529