Labview for Linux vs Windows

[parsec43]

I am developing an application for a client that is to be run on a commercial webserver. The hosting company uses Linux servers, and so there will be an additional cost in running the Labview run time engine and app on a windows server. I have never used LV for Linux before, so I have a few general questions.

What's it like? How does it look/feel? In general Linux apps look a bit less slick than windows ones. Is this the case with Labview? I noticed its system requirements are far more modest, so I am wondering what the differences are.

How seamlessly do applications written in LV for windows port to LV for Linux? Can I expect that a bug free application that runs smoothly in windows will run smoothly on the Linux machine?

I need to use the remote panel feature to host the front panel for operation remotely via a browser. Does this feature work well in Linux? The Linux screen resolution will probably be low as the server is headless, but I want the front panel resolution to be high. Will this be an issue?

Thanks

[ToeCutter]

Aren't remote panels rendered by the user's machine (as opposed to the server?), in which case it will look identical to one produced by a Windows server. LabVIEW for Linux is as bug free as the Windows version- however there are some limitations on what addons are available, so you will need to investigate that if you are using more than the base package.

Your best bet is to contact NI and see if a rep can give you a demo/loan of a Linux version. Why NI don't offer a demo for download escapes me as Linux is becoming increasingly relevant.

Another potential 'gotcha' to be aware of is that LabVIEW is only tested on a couple of flavours of Linux - I think Red Hat is one- so it may or may not be compatible with what the server is running.

[Sam_Sharp]

Due to the decline of support for Silverlight, some browsers aren't supported by it any more - Chrome needs a chrome://flags tweak to work and the new Win10 edge browser doesn't support it either. Silverlight is required for Remote Front Panels so I would check that the browser you intend to use for the remote front panels works with Silverlight.

An alternative would be to look at something like WebSockets (see the link in my signature) - but it requires a bit of HTML/JS knowledge to create your user interface in return for being supported by all major browsers without plugins.

There are obviously some things that don't work in Linux - things like .NET etc. but if you stick with native LabVIEW functions you should be OK apart from a few OS compatibility issues if you have things like paths as strings (and hence using wrong separator). As others have said - not all toolkits are supported either. We recently tried to port an application from Windows to Mac and didn't run into too many issues.

Also, I might be wrong on this but I seem to remember reading a post a long time ago that LabVIEW has dependencies on the X window manager - if your linux web server runs without a GUI (as most do) then you might have problems running/launching your application.

ToeCutter - I agree, it would be great if they created a Virtual Machine image you could use to try out the linux flavour of LabVIEW!

[Matthew_Kelton]

To add to Sam's Chrome note, the Chrome development team says that flag will be gone in the next release, due to come this month.

http://blog.chromium.org/2014/11/the-final-countdown-for-npapi.html

[Matthew_Kelton]

Does your client have access to install programs on their server?  It would nend to be dedicated or a VPS.  Smaller companies may use shared hosting, which is signifcantly cheaper, but you would not have the kind of access you need to install your Linux program.  Also, verify what resources they have, as they can be surpisingly low.

[parsec43]

Thanks for all the helpful responses. Yes we can install whatever we need on the Linux machines.

I have been playing around with remote panels. I have never used the feature much before...

Wow, so it needs silverlight it seems. So I have to tell my client's clients that they can only use the front panel in IE, and they have to install the run time engine AND the plugin... and if they already have a run time engine installed that isn't compatible it won't work. 

I was encouraged by the way remote panels can apparently handle multiple clients and re-entrant execution, but this is kind of an abomination. It feels like a legacy feature that has been left by the wayside...

[parsec43]

I have an academic site license so NI are sending me a copy of LV for Linux in the mail. It is not available for download. It seems a little unfair that the full/professional licenses for Windows aren't also valid for Linux.