DAQ devices under linux (yet again)

[mart.schneider]

I'm desperate...

I've been trying to get my USB 6008 working under linux for quite a while now. I'm using Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic) and yes I know it's not officially supported, but after reading through every forum discussion on that topic I found that it should be possible to get it working and I think I got pretty close.

So here's what I did:

I first tried to install the files from nidaqmxbase-2.0.0.iso, which finally worked:

sudo alien -d -c *.rpm

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

After that the device showed up using lsusb but not with lsdaq. So I tried to update the firmware (using NDAQMx Base on a windows machine), but still no success.

Then I found out, that there was a new version 3.3.0 of DAQMx-Base. So I installed it the same way as before, but now lsdaq just hung up without any error message but still not showing any device. I also tried version 3.1.0, still without progress.

Next try was installing DAQMx 8. It didn't seem to work either.

Current status is:

Detecting National Instruments DAQ Devices
Found the following DAQ Devices:
libnipalu.so failed to initialize
Perhaps you need to run updateNIDrivers
/usr/local/bin/lsdaq: line 7: 26415 Aborted                 /etc/natinst/nidaqmxbase/bin/daqmxbase_listdevices

when running lsdaq and

Installing NI-KAL (nikal): Starting NI-KAL failed!
make: *** [install] Error 1

when trying to update drivers using updateNIDrivers. I searched the forum for hints on these issues but nothing worked.

The device works fine on Windows (tested on Vista and 7), but I need to get it working under a linux environment.

Therefor two questions:

1. Any ideas on my ubuntu-problem? Maybe someone, who got it working on a current release can post some information on what I might be missing. Ubuntu is a widely spread distribution with great community, so I think it would be good to have at least some kind of support (although I understand that NI cannot have support for all kinds of linux distributions).
2. If I can't get it working on Ubuntu (which I don't hope), which supported configuration (linux distribution & version, driver versions) is known to work well with my USB 6008-device and can be recommended.

Thanks a lot in advance. I really appreciate NI having such a great support forum. Otherwise I'd already given up and switched back to windows 😉

[Seth_B.]

Hey Mart,

One other place you might try posting is the Linux Users Community Group.  There are a lot of very knowledgeable Linux aficionados who are very good at helping out with problems such as this.

Good luck!

[Topper_Harley]

Hi Mart,

check out these knowlegedebase documents:

1. USB Device Firmware Incompatible with DAQmx Base 3.0 or Later: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch/91CBCFE9E171C845862572CF0077D8F9?OpenDocument

2. No NI DAQ Devices Appear in lsdaq: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/2D51166605447CA08625712A006B4F98?OpenDocument

3. What Linux Distributions Do National Instruments Drivers and Software Support? http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch/35D2B5E483A001A18625716B005BE464?OpenDocument

Regards, Topp