PXI under VISA 3.0 for Linux

[HansH]

Does PXI inder VISA 3.0 for Linux support PXI instruments. If yes which is the resource-string I have to give to viFindRsrc in order to get it?

Is it neccesary to add a kernel-driver module to Linux in order to make the PXI-Bus accesible?

[David S]

Hi HansH,

Thank you for contacting National Instruments. Currently, PXI and PCI communication is supported by NI-VISA on Windows and LabVIEW RT systems, but it is not supported on Linux. R&D is aware of the desire to use VISA to control PCI/PXI devices on other operating systems, and they are evaluating ways to incorporate this functionality into NI-VISA, however there is no expected release date for this functionality. If you would like to use NI-VISA to control a PXI or PCI device, I recommend you use a Windows based computer.

Regards,

David Shatila
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[RadTek]

Hans,

COMEDI (http://www.comedi.org/) provides some low level and high level drivers which will support several PXI cards under Linux. (We are using Debian on the 8174) We've been getting adequate success with the NI PXI cards (MIO) we've been using. The COMEDI user level drivers are also moderately readable and we've had some successes modifying them to extend the capabilities. It's not a task for the timid but definitely doable.