Hi all. I’m excited to get started with my Cnc machine! This is my question: I want to dedicate a laptop for my maslow cnc machine. Could someone please advise as to operating system, ram, hard drive and graphics card?
Thanks in advance
Welcome, not sure what the minimum requirements are, but they are pretty low. I have used old hardware (8 years and older), the graphic chip should support OpenGL 2 or higher. You are free with the OS. You want to download weekly (bi-weekly), so an OS with updated security is recommended.
Welcome to our group. The requirements are pretty low, I have tested with a raspberry pi on Ubuntu Mate. I personally suggest an I5 cpu or better. My daily driver for CNC machines and 3D printers is a Lenovo T420 running Windows 10 with I believe 16megs of ram. This can be had for ~$150 from newegg. I’d say it’s hard to beat. You can also use this system to load Ubuntu if you wanted. I used to have a install CD in my drive, but have really settled on Windows for CNC most of my software is on this platform.
FWW - I have a really nice atom cpu based laptop I used for controlling my CNC devices and a few of them were erratic in performance. It turned out that the CPU could not communicate as fast as the machine was moving to it would get to a point and loose it’s next step so I would avoid low-end Intel CPUs for things that use a live stream of data for control.
Thank you
I was excited to use a little netbook (8" screen) I had laying around but quickly found out it can’t be upgraded to support OpenGL 2. Guess that’s not going to work.
I have an old desktop not supporting GL2, running GroundControl with linux. Kivy is complaining heavy at startup, but GC seems to run. Have not tested latest latest versions and have not run the Maslow with it.
If you can boot from a USB, you could try a live version without installing.
I messed up a VM yesterday xrandr somehow lost all display resolutions and hat also affected OpenGL for some reason. I’m still in the dark how to fix it and very puzzled about what caused this issue. Not maslow related, but i noticed that Kivy was not happy about it.
I tried several but non of them got accepted. Ive seen this before on intel i9xx graphics, but in a VM this was a first…
When this happens with a fresh mind then it’s educational but when it happens after midnight then it’s just a bit too much. 
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Not sure which VM platform you’re using, some offer a way to take snapshots. Useful to step back to before the ‘aw damn!’ Moment 
. Hindsight…
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VMM+KVM I make snapshot, but not often enough and that alway turns out to be just when something weird happens after midnight… The twilight zone exists…
Hmm i’ll make a snapshot of it now… then i can eventually get back at it when i feel like getting some xrandr education. 
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Thanks for your post.
I was going the Linux route with an old p4. it runs but converting to Gcode is not possible on the machine. No i’m going to win10 on a different pc with fusion 360 for Gcode.
why is it not possible?
David Lang
I was going to use the website of makerbot. But first svg, i already had problems with pockets in pockets. And then the site was off-line.
I settled on fusion 360 for my gcode generation, no linux support.
I also looked briefly into freecad/cam that has linux support but it dident feel right.
Disclaimer: I’m biased because of my training in Autocad years ago.
I ll use the linux pc for connection to the maslow and gcode generation on my laptop.
I’m still looking for an efficient flow.