On 25 December 2015 at 21:14, Jon Elson <[email protected]> wrote: > I apologize in advance for stirring up a hornet's nest, but > a branch of the LinuxCNC project has been created called > machinekit. It is mostly aimed at the ARM processors such > as the Beagle Bone.
I thought about mentioning Machinekit, but it it really has all the same problems as LinuxCNC in the context of this conversation as it also runs a standard Linux desktop. Now, back in the old days with Windows 3.11 you could edit the INI file to make any chosen application the default shell. SHELL=CLOCK.EXE was my favourite trick. You ended up with a full Windows OS that could actually only tell the time. Wondering if any of the LinuxCNC GUIs can be selected as the "shell" in the same way (For the "operator user" only, I just found this: http://www.alandmoore.com/blog/2011/11/05/creating-a-kiosk-with-linux-and-x11-2011-edition/ And reading it reinforces my feeling that "embeded mode" LinuxCNC is a lot less about the LinuxCNC GUI chosen as it is about the environment that it is running in. I run with no mouse or keyboard on my milling machine using the "Touchy" interface. That needs a touchescreen, an MPG and physical buttons for cycle-start, stop and a couple more things. One thing I like about Touchy is that (except for homing) there is no machine motion unless a physical control is operated. This is my Touchy controller box: https://picasaweb.google.com/108164504656404380542/HarrisonMill#5901893707971406962 For very single-use machines it is possible to run LinuxCNC with no GUI at all. The GUI layer sits on top of the basic machine controller, and is actually optional. One easy way to achieve this (though not the most useful) is to set DISPLAY=halui on the INI file. By setting a default G-code file and wiring physical home/run/stop buttons you can have something that isn't obviously a PC at all. Another option (though I don't think anyone knows whether it currently works or not) is the emclcd GUI, (possibly linuxcnclcd now) which is designed for these 4x20 LCD + button devices: https://www.matrixorbital.com/product_info.php?products_id=427 -- atp If you can't fix it, you don't own it. http://www.ifixit.com/Manifesto ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-developers mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
