Labview for Mac and Linux

[CHS]

What are the differences/limitations for Labview for Linux and Labview for Mac with respect to Labview for Windows. I am quite familiar with Labview versions 4-6i for Windows and we have come across some potential clients who use almost exclusively Macintosh (various versions of OS). Will Labview for the Mac work on all of the recent versions of the Mac OS or does the Linux version run on OSX as it is based on the Linux kernel? We have also come across some other potential clients that are looking for systems that I believe that a stable Linux platform would provide a better solution than Windows but I am not at all familiar with Labview for Linux features. How much difference is there between the different Labview versions and how are vi
s developed on one OS used on another OS? Thanks for any help

Carl Schmidt
MTL Corp

[Greg_McKaskle2]

> What are the differences/limitations for Labview for Linux and Labview
> for Mac with respect to Labview for Windows. I am quite familiar with
> Labview versions 4-6i for Windows and we have come across some
> potential clients who use almost exclusively Macintosh (various
> versions of OS). Will Labview for the Mac work on all of the recent
> versions of the Mac OS or does the Linux version run on OSX as it is
> based on the Linux kernel? We have also come across some other
> potential clients that are looking for systems that I believe that a
> stable Linux platform would provide a better solution than Windows but
> I am not at all familiar with Labview for Linux features. How much
> difference is there between the different Labview versions and how are
> vis developed on one OS used on another OS? Thanks for any help
>

You may be able to get more detailed information from the web site,
but the info I found was not that detailed. The core product, which
is the editor, compiler, debugger, and libraries are fundamentally
the same. It was first released on the Mac and in 1992/3 was released
for Windows and Solaris.

The VIs that you write for one platform are able to be loaded on
another platform as long as the versions are compatible. Each
platform supports services that can make VIs not run on another
platform. These services are things like ActiveX, Apple Events,
or Named Pipes. Some I/O for a platform is provided by drivers
that may be platform independent, such as GPIB, or they may be
platform dependent or only supported on a subset of platforms.

Data files are also portable between platforms. Finally, the
VI server allows LV on one platform to control or request a
VI to execute on another platform, automatically passing
parameters and returning data.

If you can more accurately describe the features that you
forsee needing on Mac or Linux, it will easier to answer the
question more easily.

One last thing, MacOSX is based on a Mach kernel. There are
BSD tools available that are similar to what is available on
Linux, but don't be fooled into thinking that they are same
thing or that an executable on one will run on the other.
It might be possible for a PPC-linux executable to load and
run in MacOSX, but most linux executables are built for Intel
machines.

Greg McKaskle