Install LinuxCNC

Installing LinuxCNC 2.9 on Debian 11

The 5.10.0-18-rt-amd64 linux-image has been found to work well with Mesa ethernet cards. Later kernels have latency issues with the ethernet port.

Open a terminal (Ctrl Alt t) and install libraries needed to build a deb

sudo apt install build-essential devscripts gdebi

Open a terminal (Ctrl Alt t) and clone LinuxCNC to the build directory.

git clone https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc.git build

Download the po4a deb and install it with Gdebi if you plan on building the documents.

Open a terminal and change to the build directory then checkout the 2.9 branch

cd build
git checkout 2.9

Run debian configure with docs

debian/configure

Or without docs

debian/configure no-docs

Install LinuxCNC dependencies

sudo apt install debhelper dh-python libudev-dev autoconf automake bwidget
sudo apt install intltool libboost-python-dev libepoxy-dev libgl1-mesa-dev
sudo apt install libglu1-mesa-dev libgtk2.0-dev libgtk-3-dev libmodbus-dev
sudo apt install libeditreadline-dev libxmu-dev netcat po4a python3-dev
sudo apt install python3-tk python3-xlib tcl8.6-dev tclx tk8.6-dev yapps2
sudo apt install asciidoc dblatex docbook-xsl dvipng groff imagemagick inkscape
sudo apt install python3-lxml source-highlight w3c-linkchecker xsltproc
sudo apt install texlive-extra-utils texlive-font-utils texlive-fonts-recommended
sudo apt install texlive-lang-cyrillic texlive-lang-french texlive-lang-german
sudo apt install texlive-lang-polish texlive-lang-spanish texlive-xetex
sudo apt install texlive-latex-recommended asciidoc-dblatex texlive-lang-european
sudo apt update
sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt dist-upgrade

Check for any build dependencies with

dpkg-checkbuilddeps

Once any build dependencies are satisfied built the deb

debuild -uc -us

The deb file will be located one directory above the build directory.

Left click on linuxcnc-uspace_2.9.0~pre0_amd64.deb and open with Gdebi and install.

Left click on linuxcnc-uspace_dev_2.9.0~pre0_amd64.deb and open with Gdebi and install.

Left click on linuxcnc-doc_en_2.9.0~pre0_amd64.deb and open with Gdebi and install.

Mesaflash

Note

The 7i96S Mesa board requires Mesaflash version 3.4.3 or newer

Note

The 7i92T series of Mesa boards require Mesaflash 3.4.4 or newer

Debian now has Mesaflash 3.4.6 so it can be installed with:

sudo apt install mesaflash

To install the latest Mesaflash download it from github

git clone https://github.com/LinuxCNC/mesaflash.git

Install required libraries

sudo apt install libpci-dev libmd-dev pkg-config

Change to the mesaflash directory and build and install

cd mesaflash
sudo make install

Mesa Configuration Tool

Mesa Configuration Tool

. Read Pin Descriptions, Read HMID, Flash Firmware, Reload Firmware, Verify Firmware . Open Mesa documents for most boards, View board images . Build a LinuxCNC configuration where changes to the ini file are not lost . Configure Smart Serial Cards . Check PC and NIC timing