Why Debian 7 and not newer? systemd?

Hi there. I'm wondering why here linuxcnc.org/docs/html/getting-started/g...th_preempt_rt_kernel is explicitly stated to download Debian 7 and not 8 (I guess 9's also outta game... isn't it?) Because of the systemd?

I believe that that particular section of the docs is a little out of date. It was written before Linuxcnc had precompiled versions for Debian 8 and 9 available on buildbot. I know that I have installed Debian 9 using those instructions as a rough guide and it worked fine.

So I could grab any distro, put PREEMPT or RT kernel into it, compile linuxcnc from sources and there should be a good chance it will work, right?

Yes, but that isn't what I was advocating. The trick to doing that is meeting all the required dependencies to build it from the source code.

It is generally much simpler to use one of distros and kernels that have precompiled versions available here.
buildbot.linuxcnc.org/

cupakm wrote: So I could grab any distro, put PREEMPT or RT kernel into it, compile linuxcnc from sources and there should be a good chance it will work, right?

Yep I've done that with Slackware (32 bit) ,and going to do it again with slackware64 and using the Linux from Scratch & Beyond Linux from Scratch docs.

I prefer the SysVinit way, nice and simple.

ozzyrob wrote:
Yep I've done that with Slackware (32 bit) ,and going to do it again with slackware64 and using the Linux from Scratch & Beyond Linux from Scratch docs.

I prefer the SysVinit way, nice and simple.

Yep, done it with all versions of Linux Mint, several Ubuntu flavours, and some other Linux distros.
I also agree with the sysV way, sysD put to much eggs into one basket, you drop the basket and end up with to many broken eggs.

@Todd,

The linuxcnc aftermarket : www.linuxcnc.org/testing-stretch-rtpreempt/

This debian 9, 64 bit strech version is the best you can get.
Change the reprository to the master version after install. You can see it on the linuxcnc buildbot site how to update to master version.

Good luck !!