EMC: why do I have so many problems?

Okay, For starters I am not very linux savy at all. and I had to get
the bdi disk,and ask for help even then to get it up and running. I
do understand windows,and even dos based stuff pretty well. I am
going to list my basic machine parameters and then list the questions
one by one

The system is a sheline 2000 mill with fairly extensive mods, the
x and y axes are both driven via 1/4-16 acme leadscrews into lexan
threads, these are driven by a 180 oz/in pac-sci stepper motors which
are driven by sd200 drivers at 1/2 step mode via step and dir outputs
from a standard parallel port. The z axis is a 10mm/1 thread. steel
on brass driven by a 140 oz/in stepper driven by another sd200 drive.
All my engineering and g-code is in metric. My x is driven by a
stepper in the usual position ( right end of the table ), but the
leadscrew protrudes to the left and is fitted with a handwheel for
manual work. The y is driven from the back via my own turret design
which allows for the leadscrew to protrude to the front for a
handwheel there. the z is box-stock sherline cnc. the rotarytable
mount and tailstock are just about finished to complete the 4 axis .

the computer is a 200 pentium with a matrox video card. the only
other card is a pci nic for the home lan if i can get it setup. the
machine was setup for the bdi install and was somewhat working, and
therin begins the questions.

1: on EMC startup I have about a 50% lockup rate, with either a
forced power down, or the machine reboots as though i had hit the hot
reboot button. what is causing this and how do I stop it. When EMC
does start it never fails in mid stream.

2: when I set up the steppers in the ini file and I had to change the
values going from the old 1 turn/mm to the new 16 turns/inch ( after
doing the math ) as I was doing the test runs to get the maximal
speed before it would stall, I would get a " follower error " what is
this and what do I do to stop it

3: EMC has the nasty habit of taking a program and running it but if
there is a glitch in the g-code ( say a restated g42 prior to an
intervening g-40 )then it will freeze up and I need to abort and
start from scratch after editing the code. does backplot have the
ability to verify the code or is ther a way to make EMC itself check
the code first for "unrunables", and how do you setup backplot?

4: Is ther a quick and easy way to make this machine home lan
capable? is the samba stuff on the bdi disk? the other 3 machines are
all win98

5:How do I modify EMC to accept the 4th axis after I install the
parallel card #2, can I use the other outputs on the 2nd parallel to
control coolant etc

6: as the prospect of servos becomes greater, does it seem more
logical to use step and dir outputs with a geckodrives or is there an
advantage to using emc to monitor the encoder itself

7: are there newer versions of realtime patch or of emc that I should
download and how hard are we talking about to install.

8: if I get a servo system off ebay with a isa card is emc so
customizable that i can point it to the specific adresses or does emc
only work with some proprietary cards/systems ( this question is
mainly for future full sized macine work )

9: is emc finicky about monitor resolution, because when I changed to
a lower resolution setting it went to a 100% lockup rate, that was
right before I Fragged the system running xconfigurator


Again thanks in advance for any help
Doc Holliday