NIDAQmxbase Compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6

[sth]

Now that we can discuss this, has NI any information on their NI-DAQmx compatibility with the new release of Mac OS X 10.6 (commonly known as Snow Leopard)?  Can the kernel extensions be used in either 32 bit kernel or 64 bit kernel mode?  Has NI done any testing of this?  Any known problems?

The ni.com/mac page claims everything past OS versions 10.3.9 is supported but that seems to be a somewhat outdated claim.

[AdnanZ]

NI DAQmx Base 3.3, released in August 2009, now supports the following versions of Mac OS X:

• Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) on Intel or PowerPC (10.4.8 or later)
• Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) on Intel or PowerPC 

You will need to wait for 10.6.

[sth]

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Adnan Z wrote:

You will need to wait for 10.6.

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Why?

NIDAQmxBase 3.3.0 was tested against pre-release versions of 10.6.  In August the release notes could not mention 10.6.  Now they can, and I am interested in some actual experience before I go off and generate my own.

For example it seems very clear the the NiViPciK kernel extension is 32 bit only and thus will not work in a 64 bit kernel.  But an actual statement by NI would be welcome.  For example NI has touted 64 bit Winders 7 compatibility http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/10184.  A similar statement would be helpful.

[Now_With_Underscores]

Hi there,

DAQmx Base 3.3 is not officially supported in 10.6.  It runs 32 bit.  We would need to use the 32 bit kernel (3+2 on startup) instead of the 64 bit kernel (6+4 on startup).  

John Sullivan
Applications Engineer
National Instruments 

[sth]

John,

Thanks, the "It runs 32 bit" is encouraging.  I gather that the 64 bit kernel has a lot more bug checking and you may have run up against something that was not kosher in your driver when trying to recompile for 64 bit?

http://lists.apple.com/archives/Darwin-drivers/2009/Sep/msg00014.html

Since almost all machines default to 32 bit kernels when booting that is not a big restriction at the moment.  But I will go forward with an upgrade on a test machine.

I am going to have to keep my knights straight here.... http://forums.ni.com/ni/profile?user.id=1040

-Scott

[JonHendry]

It would be useful to know if/when the user-level frameworks might be available built for 64-bit, so that 64 bit applications can use NIDAQmxbase.

(Though I'm not quite sure if a 64 bit app using a 64 bit  nidaqmxbase.framework would work with a 32 bit NIDAQ kernel-level driver. That would be kinda important.)

Thanks... 

[sth]

From what I know of kernel programming which is admittedly not a lot, 64 bit apps can easily access a 32 bit kernel driver.  Since all the data is passed through system calls that are 64 bit.  SInce the 32 bit drivers can access all 64 bits of memory through mapping that is not a restriction.  However a 64 bit API would need to be recompiled.

AFAIK, the API is a shared library written in LV.  Thus it will not produce 64 bit code until LV is modified to be 64 bit.  This means that all the "Carbon" system calls left over from time immemorial (ie 1989) have to be redone in Cocoa with a new UI etc.  This is a big task and NI has not announced that this is something they are willing to undertake.

I suggest pushing this into the suggestion box or the new suggestion forums.

[sth]

Just to update, I have been using NIDAQmx base 3.3.0 today with Mac OS X 10.6 and it seems stable.  There may be an installation problem so update your installation to NIDAQmx base 3.3.0 and then update the system to OS X 10.6.

[_Chris]

I did get a new MacPro with 10.6 already installed and updated to 10.6.1. 

While LabVIEW 32bit install was fast and easy, I was out of luck with VISA 4.5.1 and DAQmx base 3.3.0

I get the following error (visa 4.5.1, similar error for DAQmx base):

Sep 22 14:55:18 iamac85 installd[834]: PackageKit: Install Failed: PKG: post-install scripts for "com.ni.pkg.lv82rte"\nError Domain=PKInstallErrorDomain Code=112 UserInfo=0x1030d2980 "An error occurred while running scripts from the package “LabVIEW82Runtime.pkg”." {\n NSFilePath = "./postinstall";\n NSLocalizedDescription = "An error occurred while running scripts from the package \U201cLabVIEW82Runtime.pkg\U201d.";\n NSURL = "file://localhost/Volumes/ASL2009Q3MacLinux/Drivers/VISA/nivisai.mpkg/.packages/nispyi.mpkg/.packages/LabVIEW82Runtime.pkg";\n PKInstallPackageIdentifier = "com.ni.pkg.lv82rte";\n}

 

So it looks like the installer wants to install LabVIEW 8.2 Runtime I guess LVRTE 8.2 is not Intel compatible, I'll need to dig further to see if this could stop the installation process. 

I don't plan to revert back to 10.5 (not sure it is possible), install DAQmx and the update to 10.6,

Any advice?

Chris 

[JonHendry]

If you have a spare SATA disk around, or an external hard drive, you could plug that in and see if you can install 10.5 on it. And test if it will run the new Mac Pro.