Low budget plasma setup, what do I need?

Yes and I can not find any explanation to *transport layer*.

If I insert --epp and try --addr_hi it still fails to clear times out

Yes EPP is a transport layer

Does the parallel port work with LinuxCNC?

PCW wrote:

Yes EPP is a transport layer

Does the parallel port work with LinuxCNC?

How do I test that?

Probably the easiest way is to use halcmd

halcmd -f
halcmd: loadrt hostmot2
halcmd: loadrt hm2_7i90 ioaddr=[yourbase-address] ioaddr_high=[yourhigh_baseaddress] epp_wide=0 config = " "

and see if it loads

bengt@plasma:~$ halcmd -f
halcmd: loadrt hostmot2
<stdin>:1: waitpid failed /usr/bin/rtapi_app hostmot2
<stdin>:1: /usr/bin/rtapi_app exited without becoming ready
<stdin>:1: insmod for hostmot2 failed, returned -1
bengt@plasma:~$

I would say something is broken in your LinuxCNC installation, I would expect this:
peter@dc7800:~$ halcmd -f
halcmd: loadrt hostmot2
Note: Using POSIX realtime
hm2: loading Mesa HostMot2 driver version 0.15

Did update/upgrade

bengt@plasma:~$ halcmd -f
halcmd: loadrt hostmot2
Note: Using POSIX realtime
hm2: loading Mesa HostMot2 driver version 0.15
halcmd: loadrt hm2_7190 ioaddr=0xec00 ioaddr_high=0xe880 epp_wide=0 config=" "
hm2_7190: dlopen: /usr/lib/linuxcnc/modules/hm2_7190.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
<stdin>:2: waitpid failed /usr/bin/rtapi_app hm2_7190
<stdin>:2: /usr/bin/rtapi_app exited without becoming ready
<stdin>:2: insmod for hm2_7190 failed, returned -1
bengt@plasma:~$

What sort of base LinuxCNC installation are you using, it still seems broken.

Here's what I get:

halcmd: loadrt hm2_7i90 ioaddr=0x378
hm2_7i90: loading HostMot2 Mesa 7i90 driver version 0.3
hm2: no firmware specified in config modparam! the board had better have firmware configured already, or this won't work
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: 72 I/O Pins used:
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 000 (P1-01): StepGen #0, pin Step (Output)
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 001 (P1-03): StepGen #0, pin Direction (Output)
hm2/hm2_7i90.0: IO Pin 002 (P1-05): StepGen #1, pin Step (Output)
...

bengt@plasma:~$ uname -a
Linux plasma 4.9.0-9-rt-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT RT Debian 4.9.168-1+deb9u2 (2019-05-13) x86_64 GNU/Linux
bengt@plasma:~$

I think I will install latest via Synaptic linux-latest_4.9+80+deb9u7 I assume this the latest? Isnt this needed for PlasmaC?

I was not so concerned with the OS but rather how LinuxCNC was installed, not being able to find driver files suggests something busted with the LinuxCNC installation