I have found that when asking a technical question online, it is extremely helpful to know how familiar whomever your speaking to is with the technology involved so here is a brief overview of my background as a preamble to my next question. I Must admit I am brand new to Linux however I understand basic programming concepts, I have an Arduino kit that has been my first experience beyond a conventional windows operating system. I recently did a retrofit on a large bed mill with a 5i25-7i77 combo and after a few hiccups, the system is working spectacularly now. I am a 34 year old machinest who is involved at the local community college in their machining program, I have signed up for a linux/unix intro class in the fall (along with intro to PID) for no other purpose than to become more proficient with linuxcnc, but until then I honestly have very little clue about what I am doing in linux. I have written fairly complicated standard operating procedures for many of the processes I have at work so its fairly easy for me to follow a tutorial that has me typing commands into a terminal line, but because of unfamiliarity I have no idea what I am doing beyond basic things like the distribution update.
Anyway, I downloaded the .iso from the link provided, installed and began having trouble with things like configuring the network connections and drivers that were of no issue on the recent linuxcnc release. I get the impression that since long term support for this version of debian has ended that this is an outdated system. However, at the same time, a parallel port is becoming harder to find and definitely a limiting factor. I am perplexed by this lack of support for ethernet. Whats up with that?
