LINX 3.0 - LabVIEW for BeagleBone Black and Raspberry Pi 2/3

[Kristoff2]

Yes, VISA is supported on the target.

Yes you can use LINX VI's to access remote I/O just like you did from the PC.  The only change is on the LINX open where you specify local or remote (serial/tcp).

Shared variables are not supported at the moment but it is something I'd like to add.

Timed loops are supported but since the OS is non deterministic you'll see a lot more jitter than you do on RIO devices (multiple orders of magnitude).

BBB and RPI2/3 are only supported in LabVIEW 2014.  You can still use 'remote I/O' from your PC in 2015, but you cannot deploy to BBB/RPI2.

-Sam K

[tst]

Sam, I saw elsewhere a claim that the LINX deployment option would only be allowed for non-commercial use, but don't see anything official about anywhere. Any word on that? You might wish to add that to the FAQ.

Also, the answer on the supported version in the FAQ has the text cut off and I would suggest making it clear there that it's only 2014 SP1 and not any later versions.

[evandrorech]

Thanks for the answer, Sam! As I get my RPI, I will install LabVIEW 2014 SP1 to verify the functionality and track the development of LINX!

This progress you have achieved in LINX was amazing, it opened many doors for the maker community! Congratulations!

[Sam_Sharp]

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@tst wrote:

Sam, I saw elsewhere a claim that the LINX deployment option would only be allowed for non-commercial use, but don't see anything official about anywhere. Any word on that? You might wish to add that to the FAQ.

Also, the answer on the supported version in the FAQ has the text cut off and I would suggest making it clear there that it's only 2014 SP1 and not any later versions.

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It's very explicitly stated in the target configuration utility:

I posted about it on the MakerHub forums to ask more about it but it seems to have disappeared.

[tst]

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@Sam_Sharp wrote:

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@tst wrote:

Sam, I saw elsewhere a claim that the LINX deployment option would only be allowed for non-commercial use

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It's very explicitly stated in the target configuration utility:

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Which presumably you only see (if at all) after you went thorugh the trouble of installing 2014 SP1 and LINX, so not what I would call a good user experience. I would suggest Sam adds it somewhere much more noticable before downloading (such as on the download page and the FAQ).

Also, while we're there, what's the thinking behind this? My best guess is that even though the Pi doesn't really play in the same market as the NI hardware, NI still doesn't want it to be an option which could cost sales. The second option is that NI doesn't want to kill the TSXperts compiler just as it gets off the ground.

[Hooovahh]

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@tst wrote:

The second option is that NI doesn't want to kill the TSXperts compiler just as it gets off the ground.

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I too wish the TSXperts guys the best.  To be fair their toolkit has a super neat feature that LINX doesn't have, which is that not only does the LabVIEW code get deployed to the Pi, but you can plug in a monitor into the Pi and see the front panel of the running VI.  But also the TSXperts were marketing the maker community, by offering a Home version of their licensing for less cost.  So I still feel like the non-commercial aspect of LINX is still going to affect them.  I mean if I were new to the Pi development community, I certainly would be looking at LINX first because it is free.

[Kristoff2]

There is a MakerHub thread on the licensing here.  I'm not sure if that is the one Sam_Sharp was refering to, but I posted some more details there.

The license is included in the VIPM installer and on the LINX github repo.  We're still working on bring the public repo up to the 3.0 release.

-Sam K

[kittentronic]

I (and one or two others) have posted about the new LINX capability on the Raspberry Pi forums, but I can't find anything on the main raspberrypi.org site - has anyone alerted them to its existence?

I know a lot of people in the Pi community will dismiss LabVIEW as it's not free and still needs a Windows PC to develop the code on, but for certain use cases it's clearly a big step forward to be able to get LV code on to the Pi and you should blow your trumpet about it!

[jeanlucpicard]

Sorry if my question is really dumb, but I have not used this kind of stuff before: if I program up a RasPi 2/3 with this new toolkit, then I can disconnect the computer and the full LabVIEW program will run on its own on the Pi? If so, can it be used for anything else in the meanwhile (I mean any other non-LabVIEW stuff that you would use a Pi for)?

Thanks

[Sam_Sharp]

Yes to both. If you create and deploy a Real Time Executable to the Pi - it will run on startup of the RPi. On the Pi itself, it runs as a process in the background - so it will boot to the console/user interface as normal.