Welcome to LinuxCNC.org

It should be no big deal to make a 5I25 config for the Campbell board (a few minutes of cut/pasteing the pinout file), but for a simple small step driven mill a 5I25 is really overkill especially since the Atom MBs provide such good latency figures. So like John says start with a parallel port configuration and if you need better performance, then consider upgrading your hardware.

BigJohnT wrote:Yes, the Intel D525MW takes 204-pin DRAM sticks, where the older ones used
240-pin.

Jon

arch dude wrote:
Hi arch dude,

I really like the idea of an SSD - I'm currently looking at what these wee beasties cost - I can obtain, for e.g., a Corsair 60GB Force Series 3 SSD for AU$85, which would seem way more than enough for this setup, given that my Parallels Ubuntu/LinuxCNC2.5 image on my Mac is just shy of 3 GB (I installed it for fun . Speaking of running headless, back when I first go the hardware, I ran EMC2 from the other end of the house via Gbit ethernet in an xterm on the Mac, the (now defunct) PC being in the workshop. OS X having UNIX underpinnings (apparently "UNIX "Certified"" - for whatever worth that is, I don't know) helps in that respect. THe ocre of the system is FreeBSD, I think - but don't quote me. At any rate, EMC2 worked like a charm in the xterm so I was able to get a feel for it, although I've probably forgotten most of it, hence the Parallels installation.

Whether I can set the iMac up as a boot server without adding the abysmal, lobotomised "Lion "Server"", I'll have to investigate. I might be able to get he old G5 box running SnowLeopard to do that. Or install a PowerPC version of Linux on that . That's something that I ve been meaning to try out for years and never had the real motivation until now!

I like the idea of a smartphone pendant!

Cheers,
Alex.

Hi Jon,

Useful to know, thanks .

Cheers,
Alex.

jmelson wrote:
Hi John,

That's on the top of the list of post-Atom-purchase acquisitions!
#1 memory;
#2 psu;
#3 ssd;
#4 enclosure - I've had several thoughts about that including modding the old PC tower with hinges and a door interlock switch.

Cheers,
Alex.

SSD versus PXE boot with NFS is really a question of money vs. time. SSE is easy, but the drive costs about the same as the motherboard. PXE/NFS is more work to set up, but costs nothing if you have the server already. performance for this task is not an issue: either will just work.

In contrast to the machine controller (which must meet LinuxCNC's requirements) you can use any random computer to run as a Linux server. I personally think a gig-e interface is highly desireable, and you clearly need enough disk to support whatever services you intend it to provide.