Building EMC software

Greetings all -
I am trying to evaluate EMC as a controller for a large plasma cutter (25' x 9'
capacity) that I want to build for cutting metal for a (large) boat.

I have successfully installed rtlinux-3.0 with linux kernel 2.2.18 under
redhat 7.0.

emc-1.17 dosen't want to build under this setup. I have a couple of questions:

1. EMC seems to be heavily dependent on the specific versions of the kernel and
rtlinux. Is there any future plan to use the 'standard' GNU
autoconf/automake/configure tools to make the build process a little easier?
for example, I see a lot of copying and linking going on to a platform specific
directory and there appear to be separate spec/definition files for each
platorm, OS and rtlinx variant.

2. If not (or in the meantime), is there an EMC package that will copile with
rtlinux-3.0 and kernel 2.2.18?

3. Finally, for anyone out there who knows a lot about plasma cutters (I don't):
a. For a large (25 x 9 foot capacity) plasma cutter, how is the plate to be
cut supported? What issues are involved with the plate support as far as
not interfering with the plasma jet, not welding to the workpiece, etc... ?

b. What is the generally acceptable accuracy of cutters today?

c. has anyone out there built a large (or small) plasma cutter with EMC?

Thanks!
Keith