Re: How do I know if I want Linux

> From: Don Hughes <pencad@...>
> Now, with the development of all the "Windows-Gate" O/S's of the past,
> present, and who knows what in the future, we all run a variety of
> Win95, Win NT compatible software for other uses(accounting,
> Spreadsheets, etc.) than just our CNC machines.
>
> My question is, how do I, myself, know and justify the reason that I
> would want to have Linux on my system with a partition for Linux
> exclusively to do other tasks?

Actually, the machines I've built have a PC dedicated to the cnc control
task, and are be connected to other PCs in the enterprise through the LAN.
The main reason for choosing Linux as the OS to host the EMC program was the
availability of high performance real time extensions to the basic Linux
kernel. There are similar extensions available for Windows NT, however their
level of performance doesn't exceed that of the Linux version and,
incidentally, they cost a lot of money. Windows CE would be another option as
I believe it has real time capabilities built in since it is intended to be
used for sophisticated embedded applications. WinCE is a new product and I
know of only one cnc system that has been built using it (I did the wiring
work on this prototype). For an article on this subject see:

http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?980512.wembed.htm

Matt
mshaver@...