Which Linux distro and version so NI hardware drivers "just work"?

[ericf83]

I'm willing to be flexible. Can anybody recommend a distro and version of Linux (sorry, it has to be Linux) so that, at a minimum, DAQmx, NI-SCOPE, and NI-FGEN, will all install and work (or at least have the best shot at doing so)? I don't need USB support.

I've looked at the distro support charts, and the "check-minus" is a bit... vague.

I don't personally need Labview, but I'm guessing others following any recomendations might.

I'm  willing to customize (ie, hack) the installations if neccessary (which, according to the forums, appears to be a frequent requirement).

Personal user experiences or recommendations from the top would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Eric

[jtlee]

Hey Eric,

We've been working with Ubuntu 10.10 with pretty good success.  Seems like NI stuff goes south when you update past kernel 2.6.x 

Not sure about NI-SCOPE or NI-FGEN..just DAQmx and NIdaq. 

HTH.

This is what we used: https://forums.ni.com/t5/Linux-Users/How-to-install-NI-DAQmx-8-0-1-on-Ubuntu-10-10-Maverick-Meerkat/...

John

[irwan]

You'd have more success, if you follow the supported distro. We actually test internally on those distro.

I'm glad people got Ubuntu to work, but if you have problems, there's less chance for NI people to support you.

There has been more pressure for us to support Ubuntu, and we've been wanting to support that distro for a while. Sadly, we're always working on higher priority projects.

[metux]

I'm willing to be flexible. Can anybody recommend a distro and version of Linux (sorry, it has to be Linux) so that, at a minimum, DAQmx, NI-SCOPE, and NI-FGEN, will all install and work (or at least have the best shot at doing so)?  

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None. At least none that isn't completely outdated and unsupported.

[szewczak]

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@metux

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None. At least none that isn't completely outdated and unsupported.

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Completely outdated and unsupported is fine with me, I'm happy to have a Frankenstein machine if it means I am trying to get NI products to work on the same machine that a NI engineer used to check the box "this code works".

Has anyone ever gotten a NI person to nail down what distro/version LabVIEW is currently using for testing?

[justinblair]

Like it's been stated sadly nothing "just works" out of the box.  The company I'm employed with is using CENTOS 7.4 and was able to get them working using this information:

https://forums.ni.com/t5/Linux-Users/failed-to-build-nikal-error-on-RHEL7-5-3-10-0-862-3-2-el7-x86-6...

I'd imagine RHEL7 / CENTOS7 are your best bets.  I'd happily send $100 to anyone who can get them working in a stable fashion on Ubuntu 16.04 / 18.04 but for now CENTOS is working for us.

[WilliamEarle]

We've recently been working on updating our Linux support:

https://www.ni.com/en/support/downloads/drivers/download.ni-linux-device-drivers.html#349660

http://www.ni.com/product-documentation/54754/en/ 

Supported distros:

http://www.ni.com/product-documentation/52786/en/ 

Our automated test suites for DAQmx run centOS, and we also test all of the distributions on that list, so to answer your question someone "checked the box" for all of those distros (for the new version of our linux support).

[metux]

We've recently been working on updating our Linux support:

http://www.ni.com/download/ni-linux-device-drivers-2018/7664/en/ 

http://www.ni.com/product-documentation/54754/en/ 

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WARNING: this package introduces a CRITICAL VULNERABILITY, that makes it easy to completely take over the whole system !