Where do I find 2.2 version of 488 drivers for linux RHE5 and Labview 8.6 and VISA 4.2

[SteveLevy]

Trying to use an older USB to GPIB converter USB-GPIB-A and need to revert to the older 488 driver version 2.2 on linux

[Justin_E]

Hi Steve,

You can find NI-488.2 version 2.2 for Linux here : http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/310/lang/en

Unfortunately, it looks like that driver version is not supported in Red Hat Enterprise WS5. It is supported in WS3 and WS4, so you might want to try reverting to an older operating system or a different Linux OS that is supported (supported OS's can be found in the readme file found here : http://ftp.ni.com/support/softlib/gpib/linux/readme.txt )

[Justin_E]

Steve,

The 488.2 2.2 driver that I linked in my previous post only supports GPIB/ENET-100, and not GPIB-USB-A at all. Take a look at this DevZone article : http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/5458

In here, it doesn't show any Linux support for GPIB-USB-A. This isn't to say that if you install a 488.2 driver it won't work, but rather that we haven't necessarily tested the compatability between the driver and the device. You can definitely try installing a version of 488.2 that's supported in Red Hat WS 5 (it looks like the two drivers that are supported in WS 5 are 2.5 Beta 32-bit 0 and 1, found here : http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/799/lang/en and here : http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/980/lang/en), and see if you can communicate with your device. 

[SteveLevy]

Justin,

I got into this whole question via the information at the link below.  Hence I am thinking the 2.5 release is not what I want and 2.2 (if it works with RHE5)????  Any thoughts?  Can you guys try this??

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?message.uid=857521

[Justin_E]

Steve,

There are a couple of issues with trying to do this, mainly with Linux. For one, it doesn't look like any of the Linux drivers have been tested with GPIB-USB-A, and thus cannot be verified to work with this device. Two, the only two drivers that are supported in WS5 are the two Beta versions of 488.2 version 2.5, so any of the previous versions will not work on WS5 because of changes in the OS's kernel. In order to communicate with any GPIB device on a WS5 machine, you will need one of those two 2.5 Beta drivers.

That being said, I would definitely try installing one of the Beta drivers onto your machine to see if you can connect your GPIB-USB-A device. The fact that we haven't tested the GPIB-USB-A device with these drivers doesn't necessarily mean it won't work. If it shows up in Measurement and Automation Explorer correctly, then you should be able to use it with your setup. Unfortunately, if it does not show up correctly then you will not be able to use this instrument with your system.

Regards,

[Justin_E]

Also, with regards to the other discussion forum that you linked, I believe that that person referenced this KnowledgeBase article to solve his issue: KnowledgeBase 2OM8T4WH : Differences Between the GPIB-USB-A and GPIB-USB-B
This article, while not explicitly mentioned, refers to the 488.2 drivers for Windows operating systems, and not Linux.

[SteveLevy]

Justin,

I am not sure if I understand your point...  Are you saying that 2.2 is necessary to support USB-GPIB-A on windows system; but 2.5 will work for a US-GPIB-A on a linux system??

Thanks,

Steve

[Justin_E]

Steve,

The first statement is correct... 488.2 2.2 is necessary to support USB-GPIB-A on a Windows system. The second statement however, is not necessarily true. We cannot verify that a USB-GPIB-A device will work on a Linux machine. It has not been tested, so we cannot say "yes this will work". It is very likely that this will NOT work in your system, but it wouldn't hurt to see if it does. 488.2 2.5 for Linux is necessary to communicate with ANY GPIB device on Red Hat WS5. Thus, in order to even test the device to see if it will work or not, you will need to install 2.5 onto your machine.

Again, the main point I want to make is that this is not guaranteed to work. It likely will not work on any Linux machine, but if you want to use it with this setup then it wouldn't hurt to try.

Regards,

[Dennis_Knutson]

Well, I did a quick look at the release notes and I don't see where the USB-GPIB-A was ever supported on Linux at all. Only the USB-GPIB-B.