Updating from LINUXCNC - 2.8.4-23, Mint 20.3

Yes, I used the official LinuxCNC ISO. I see what you mean about XFCE, in contrast to the previous Mint GUI.....

Had a few problems installing it, which may have been due to using a 256GB UFD. Changed to a 16GB and it went well, whether that was the problem or not.

Now I have a functioning OS, I will have a go at reinstituting gmoccapy.

There's always the possibility of installing MATE, but unfortunately the Debian setup of the Menus and panels isn't as nice as Mint's setup.

XFCE is not all bad.

It's actually a bit likeable in a weird sort of way.

Though it is highly unintuitive and has no search bar.

(Analoguous to the windows key menu or SpotLight Seach (command+spacebar) or Mac)

On the lower panel one of the icons is search, although it maybe just be an application search, either way it's quite easy to customise, right clicking on a panel allows you to add, delete or modify icons.

unknown wrote:

On the lower panel one of the icons is search, although it maybe just be an application search, either way it's quite easy to customise, right clicking on a panel allows you to add, delete or modify icons.

Meh.

I still think a Windows-key(or Ctrl+Spacebar)-activated search prompt would be nice.

XFCE is not beginner friendly, and whoever made it has terrible taste in screensavers.

Though Thunar is pretty good, and it does have a dock by default (unlike MATE as far as I can see), not that that is particularly impressive.

Yes, I lost an hour or more of my life today trying to map my network drive. It was quick and easy with Mint but XFCE's Thunar doesn't like to get involved with network drives, so you have to install gigolo it seems but even that has changed since the few how-to guides were created, just to keep you guessing. The user instructions are "commendably sparce". That's working finally.

I'm clearly going to have to run pncconfig again, if only to create some placeholder files that I can edit / replace / merge, since it seems I can't simply copy the original folders over and expect it to work.

Although I previously flashed the 5i25 with the required bitfile (link below), my particular combination of boards (5i25 / 7i76 / 7i85) doesn't appear in the pncconfig screen, so I can't configure my IO. Consequently, the generated HAL file won't be right. Is there a workaround for this?
forum.linuxcnc.org/27-driver-boards/4254...nnectors-over#208828

My plan seems to be to generate a dummy gmoccapy installation, then copy the contents of my previous INI and HAL files across, then knock over the resulting errors one by one.

The original installation had closed loop axes (X&Y) and an WHB04B-6 WMPG, which took a while to set up and debug.

The issue is that you need gvfs-fuse & gvfs-backends, and to setup samba as well.

You can avoid dealing with network drives by using scp to copy files to (and possibly also from) a server.

For easy access to your server's files, you can use NGINX or Apache to make them accessible over HTTP.

My home server (the machine behind www3.langdonstaab.ca) also serves as a way to move files between computers and store them, as it is always on and available, but I don't use samba or any network drive thing at all, though I did once.

Apple's simple command+k shortcut to connect to a samba share is really nice, I wonder why Linux distros can't seem to achieve the same thing; it is absolutely possible, I guess they just never thought of it.

The thing is MacOS and windows only have one file manager to deal with. There's numerous file managers within Linux that are available and each has there own implementation.
And samba shares can be mounted in a variety of ways as well. an entry in fstab (and this can either be a auto or non-auto mount), via the commend line, via the address bar in a file manager......and a hundred other I've probably forgotten over the years.
And going back to XFCE or anything DE for that matter, you've probably noticed that each distro will have a different set of panels, menu implementations or what not. So XFCE on one distro will look different on onther, same for MATE Mint & Debian have a wholly different look for the menus & panels. What this will come down to is the team or person that builds the distro.
The reason the Linuxcnc desktop looks so basic is due to no customisations being made. It's just the way the package manager installs it. And when the builder of the distro does their mods they have to make sure that the mods stay between package upgrades. So there is a lot of work. This was really brought home when I was building the new RPi images. Most of the XFCE programs have their defaults set via xml files under the /etc/xdg directory, so the basic default look and feel come from those files. Then again DE are quite configurable, depends how much time the end user want to change it and how much time.

Now Muzzer:
With regards to file sharing, since I'm working within a Linux environment, I just use sftp to mount directories on other machines, in the context of Linux in the machine you want to connect has an ssh serving running there's no setup needed, as long as gvfs-backends & gvfs-fuse are installed. These locations can be bookmarked within the Linux file manager. And of course the workhorse server has NFS shares setup.
Now Thunar does have a plugin that lets you create samba shares on your Linux machine without needing root access, but of course there will have to be an instance of a samba server running, unfortunately it's a little hit and miss according to reports on the internet.
Funnily enough the only distro I've found to have samba working out of the box was when I use to use Puppy Linux, but that was prior to Windows 8,10,11.
Whilst I haven't tried it, a suitable ssh server for windows may give the same functionality.

There's also the option of using a domestic router to work as an intermediary samba server between windows and Linux.......Tho I think some may use a very early SMB protocol.