This guide has been upated for Linux Mint 21.3. Check it out here.

A quick guide on how to set up a LinuxCNC simulator on Linux Mint. The LinuxCNC simulator is useful for testing/debugging drivers, gcode parsing and other non-realtime features without having to crawl around under your machine's actual control.

Versions

• LinuxCNC Git at commit 10ae35219.
• Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon
• Kernel 5.0.0-32-generic

Dependencies

apt install \
    bwidget \
    intltool \
    kmod \
    libboost-python-dev \
    libglu-dev \
    libgtk2.0-dev \
    libmodbus-dev \
    libtk-img \
    libudev-dev \
    libusb-1.0-0-dev \
    libx11-dev \
    libxinerama-dev \
    libxmu-dev \
    mesa-common-dev \
    python \
    python-tk \
    tclx \
    tk-dev \
    yapps2

There might be an issue finding yapps where it's installed as yapps2. In this case, remove the yapps2 line from above, and run this as well:

apt install python-pip
pip install yapps

Build

The following steps are a condensed version of the official build docs.

git clone https://github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc.git
cd linuxcnc/src
./autogen.sh
./configure \
  --with-realtime=uspace \
  --enable-non-distributable=yes \
  --disable-userspace-pci \
  --disable-check-runtime-deps
make -j12
cd ..
./scripts/linuxcnc

• --with-realtime=uspace will compile LinuxCNC to run on non-realtime kernels, or kernels that use the Preempt-RT patches.
• --enable-non-distributable=yes squelches a warning. Remove this flag to see a message with alternatives.