Slackware 10.2 hardware not recognized

[john sargent]

Well I have tried to apply the rpm fix scripts, and they seem sort of oK.  Then I rebuilt the kernel to have modversions.h.
Then I just followed one error at a time and installed things by manually copying them into place.  I learned what those *.dir files are and created some of those.
The scripts didn't die when there was no /etc/init.d, they just didn't put anything there, so I did.
I start up "nipal start" in rc.local.  Some lights came on.
./gpibexplorer comes up but has an "OK" alert with no text and then has no text showing any interfaces, so there aren't any interfaces (there is a card in the system, I can see it
with lspci).
The major device in /proc/devices matches the one in /dev/nipalk.
the modules nipalk and nikal are both loaded and nipalk is the client of nikal.
gpibtsw says the presence of the software is verified and that it is not correctly installed so I should reboot and do it again.
The gpibintctrl program prints out that it can't find module gpibprtk, which is a no-version module.  I don't know where to put it.  I tried a few places in /usr/local/natinst but it
didn't help.
I am downloading suse 10.1 but National doesn't actually say it supports that version of Suse.
All I need is a GPIB interface I can program.  I don't want LabVIEW or anything else.  I want to be able to call ibsend() as I have on and off for 20 years.
I want to use linux, which I have for 8 years.  I have spent several days on this.  I had nigpib working on Slackware 9.1, but when I tried to set that up on a spare partition,
an object in nigpib complained that it was compiled with gcc 2 and the kernel was gcc 3, so I don't remember how I got it to work either.
If you have a suggestion I'd appreciate it.

[Shawn B.]

John,

You are a determined individual!  Let me start by saying that even though SUSE 10.1 Linux is not officially supported, if you install NI-KAL 1.3 before installing NI-488.2 2.3 things will be much easier than using Slackware.

A couple of observations:
Did you run the INSTALL script for NI-KAL and NI-488.2?  You MUST run these scripts, do not simply install the *.rpm files.
You should have gpibprtk.ko in /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/natinst/ni4882  If you don't have this file try running updateNIDrivers.
You should also have an init script called gpibenumsvc, it should start after the nipal init script.  You can probably find it in /usr/local/natinst/nipal/etc/init.d if it isn't in /etc/init.d

Good luck!

Shawn B.
National Instruments

[MatthieuD]

Hello,

We work in a lab which is using Slackware linux as its main application platform.
Today we received the following equipment from NI in the context of a loaner service:
  GPIB usb,
  PCI 6040E daq board,
  SH68-68 cable,
  SCB68 front end box.
The sales engineer who came to us recommended to download the iso image "nidaqmxbase-1.5.0-f2.iso" to install the required software from. We also have a dell PC where a debian based linux is installed. During the evaluation period we will use that dell PC
to plug the PCI based nidaq card in. Neither Slackware linux nor Debian is officially supported by NI. We tried to install the software
from the iso image upon a Slackware based distribution and a Debian based distribution nontheless. In both cases the installation
was finished successfully. It can also be stated that the PCI 6040E works on the Debian based PC. Up until now , we don't have
tried the NI hardware on a Slackware based distribution yet. We let you know if it works successfully as soon as possible.

In order to get the installation script finish its task successfully one has to perform three basic steps:
 1. complile a 2.6.x kernel , on the Slackware based PC we downloaded a 2.6.10 kernel from kernel.org and on the Debian
     based PC we installed the "kernel-source-2.6.8" in order to be able to compile a 2.6.x kernel,
 2. install the rpm package , both Slackware and Debian distros have a native compiled in version for that,
 3. adapt the installation scripts comming with the NI software , it is simple to find those because they all are called "INSTALL" ,
     such that an unconditional install is beiing performed , simply stated the "--nodeps" option must be added to the
     rpm calls in the scripts , also remove the '--prefix "$installDirxxx" options  from the rpm calls in the main INSTALL script.

On a Slackware based PC there is one minor error message during the install. It is generated because Slackware uses
a BSD init script model instead of the expected system V based init scripts that appear in all officially supported distros.
One may try to start the service manally by launching the script by hand. The script is called "/usr/local/natinst/nipal/etc/init.d/nipal".
When one says "nipal start" from the command line on a Slackware linux , the kernel modules "nipalk" and "nikal" are loaded.

If you are interested in obtaining those modified versions of the scripts and furher intallation guidelines for the Slackware platform
please be so kind to post an email address were we can send those. We can be reached at "pascal.pype@b_rail.be".

Kind regards , Pype Pascal.