LabVIEW
installing 3rd party software on cRIO controller
Hi IoT,
which cRIO are we talking about?
Is it a RT-Linux target? If yes: there are several possibilities to install your own/4rd party software on these targets!
You are in luck. Your controller is one of the newer ones running the x64 Linux RT based OS. Lots of cool stuff can be done with it and I assume there are several Deb based Linux packages that can be installed with the included OPKG manager. I've installed Firefox, and a few other Deb applications with lots of success.
Adobe is probably not what you want since it has tons of overhead and things you likely won't use. But if you really want it you can assuming you can find an x64 version of adobe for Windows, I was able to install Wine and run Windows application compiled for 64 bit. But again if you are just looking to view a PDF a native application made for Linux is the way to go.
EDIT: The first thing I found that I haven't tried is this PDF viewer.
Double Edit: I just tried it and Firefox24 which has PDF viewing functionality built in.
@IoT.Windsor wrote:
Sounds good.
But how do I install a software on cRIO? Should I connect to it via a host (e.g my laptop) and then open NI-MAX and install the software? it seems it only allows NI software to be installed. am I correct?
This is true that to install software through MAX you need code packaged in a specific way. It is possible to add 3rd party software through MAX in the same way but I don't think it is documented. There was a thread over on LAVA at one point discussing some high level details.
The more appropriate way to install software on a Linux machine, is to SSH into it. Here is the first thing I found when googling SSH for beginners. Basically download Putty, and log into your remote target. You'll be presented with a bash like shell similar to DOS or Windows command prompt. From there if your controller is on the internet (after logging in) you can perform commands to install packages. These aren't VIPM packages, and they aren't NI specific packages, but instead packages made to be installed on a version of Linux, using a package manager. NI's Linux RT includes the OPKG package manager and you can do things like "opkg install <package name>" or "opkg update" and "opkg upgrade" to update the NI package list, and then update all the packages on your target, that have updates on the NI repository. There are other repositories and in most cases Debian Linux packages can be installed through OPKG. I understand it might be getting a bit hairy at this point and it was for me not too recently too.
In addition to installing packages through a package manager, several Linux applications can be run as .so files which are compiled binaries. These still might rely on system files that are usually installed through some package manager but can be installed manually too. Getting these files over to your target can be done through MAX or an sftp client like Filezilla.
But in your particular case here's what I suggest. Download Firefox 24 from here for the x64 target. Extract it and update soundlib2 using opkg as mentioned in this thread. Then run ./firefox in the extracted folder but not from SSH because there is no UI so there is nothing to see, you need to run this from the UI using a keyboard and mouse on the embedded UI.
I agree that is is a bit complicated, but the fact that it is possible is wildly fantastic. Previously with other embedded controlers, adding new software to the OS was very difficult, and many software packages just weren't available. I mean good luck getting a web browser on a Pharlap or VXworks embedded target from a software perspective, lets not forget about the fact that the UI is all text only with no SSH option at all. Package management, hardware drivers, additional software were all not an option, unless NI put in tons time and money to have it be an option. Now someone like me with very little Linux, experience can install Firefox, and open PDFs. Good luck and be sure and come back if you get suck or have other questions.
