Question Which controller for the Stepcraft 840?

I didn't get the UC100 board as I don't want to get a Windows PC just for the machine, and would prefer to control the machine from a Raspberry Pi, and initially been trying to get it to work using my Mac.
What controller would be recommended for this?

I got an Arduino Nano running GRBL wired to a parallel connector from a friend, but it doesn't work though I think it's wired correctly. While searching around I've found Tiger GRBL-SC and MDLCNC Estlcam Interface, which look like plug and play solutions for this. BUT I am a total noob (first CNC machine), and I'm not quite sure what would be best.

If there's some guide on how to set everything up, that would be awesome!

I just bought a D840, haven't gotten a chance to use it yet as I started by making an enclosure. I would also love to run it via a raspberry pi or something similar. I'm not very keen on putting my laptop around all that dust in the workshop. even though the enclosure will stop most of it, I have other machines like a wood lathe, sander, ... that will spread the stuff everywhere (even with dust collection). so Ideally some sort of controller that can accept a usb stick/sd card or even over wi fi would be best.

perhaps the pendant for uccnc/winpc-nc can do this, but you would still need to run that software on a pc...