LabVIEW exe running on BeagleBone Black linux lxde

[Matthias9265]

Hello,

I'm working on developing an HMI of sorts using a BeagleBone Black and a touchscreen. I currently have a version light-weight version of Linux (LXDE) running on the BBB with a desktop GUI.

I'm familiar with the need to use a Linux OS running the LabVIEW Application Builder to build the application to run on a Linux desktop as well as the limited # of supported Linux operating systems for LabVIEW development environment.

My question is this: is it possible to run the application (.exe) on the BBB once it's built from a Linux-based LabVIEW Application Builder?

I'm particularly interested in the front panel being visible as this exe will be a HMI of sorts with no need to access GPIO on the BBB.

There's a pain-staking process I have to go through before I can test this for myself, so I'm looking for some insight before diving head-first.

Also: Special request:

Could someone upload a Linux-built LabVIEW application (.exe or even an installer that doesn't require LV RTE) that I could use to test this myself? Something simple with a Boolean control feeding to an indicator in a loop would be sufficient and would save me a LOT of time.

Thanks!

[rolfk]

No! LabVIEW for Linux is an Intel x64 compiled application and can only create binary executables to run on Intel x64 compatible hardware. Your BBB runs an ARM CPU.

There is a sort of workaround in that the Linx Toolkit provides the possibility to deploy LabVIEW code to both a Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Black, but I have only seen it used for the Raspberry Pi so far. So I would expect even more trouble to get it setup to work with the Beaglebone Black board.

Also this is a headless option. The LabVIEW executable runs in its own chroot jail, which is basically a lightweight virtual machine running its own Debian based Linux OS to provide the same ARM environment that is used on the NI-RIO ARM based targets. And because it is based on the RIO architecture it does not support displaying a GUI on your device screen. You could of course use the I2C interfaces to access your own external LCD display to show some data but that is a serious investment in time and effort.

And there is no (easy) way to build a LabVIEW executable that does not require a full installation of the LabVIEW Runtime Engine. So your special request is a pipe dream. The LabVIEW Runtime Engine does all the heavy lifting of interfacing to the many OS APIs and providing all the functions you access in your VIs to do file IO, network communication, memory management, etc. etc. And it is the main reason you can't just take a LabVIEW built exe to any platform of your choice as NI must have created a Runtime Engine for that specific platform in order to let you run the executable, which in fact is only a packaged archive of the compiled VIs, with a special startup stub that locates the Runtime Engine, starts it up and hands the VIs in the internal archive to it to execute them.