NI-KAL Beta 1.10 - Question

[Shawn B.]

jmpl wrote:

This looks like the modules do not work on 64bits OS.

The only 64-bit drivers that NI currently has available are NI-488.2 and NI-VISA.

Shawn Bohrer

National Instruments

[jmpl]

Hello,

This is the version I am using of NI-VISA

Thanks

[Shawn B.]

I just looked over the NI-VISA 4.5 installer and it looks like the 64-bit support wasn't included.  I'm guessing this was an oversight on our part.  NI-VISA 4.4 does include 64-bit Linux support so you may be able to use that if you need to.  You will need to first run the UNINSTALL script for NI-VISA 4.5 otherwise you won't be able to downgrade your NI-VISA version.

Shawn Bohrer

National Instruments

[kiqueus]

Hello,

I'm trying to install NI-VISA and NIKAL 1.10 in Suse 11.1 and found the following mesage when executing installNIDrivers.:

Configuring for linux kernel version 2.6.27.7-9-default.

********************************* NOTE *********************************
Using kernel headers found in /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/source.
If this does not correspond to the location of the 2.6.27.7-9-default headers,
then define KERNELHEADERS in your environment to point to the location
of the kernel headers, define KERNELTARGET as the version of the
kernel for which to compile, and then rerun ./configure.
********************************* NOTE *********************************

Kernel has reparent_to_init(): no
Number of arguments for do_munmap(): 3
pte_offset function: pte_offset_kernel()
Levels in page table: 4
Kernel has remap_pfn_range: yes
USB altsetting name: cur_altsetting
Kernel has usb_get_intf(): yes
Kernel has intf_cache member in usb_host_config: yes
Kernel has ep[] members in usb_device: yes
Kernel exports usb_set_configuration(): no
Units of USB_CTRL_GET_TIMEOUT: msec
Kernel has owner member in usb_driver: no
Kernel has put_page_testzero(): yes
Kernel has mutex method: yes
Kernel has kthread: yes
Kernel has config.h: yes
Kernel has ioctl32.h: no
IRQ handlers have pt_regs: no
Kernel has work_struct and delayed_work: yes

Storing configuration in Makefile.in
If the values stored are incorrect they can be changed before running make.

Uninstalling NI-KAL (nikal): done
/bin/rm -rf objects
Updating NI-KAL:
NI-KAL update failed.

/bin/cp nikal.c objects/nikal.c
/bin/cp nikal.h objects/nikal.h
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-default/source SUBDIRS=/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9'
  CC   /usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.o
/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.c:447: error: unknown field ‘nopage’ specified in initializer
/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.c:447: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.c: In function ‘nNIKAL100_destroySemaphore’:
/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.c:2355: error: ‘nLinux_semaphore’ has no member named ‘sleepers’
/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.c: In function ‘nNIKAL100_releaseSemaphore’:
/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.c:2420: error: request for member ‘counter’ in something not a structure or union
make[2]: *** [/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9'
make: *** [objects/nikal.ko] Error 2

ERROR: make of nikal kernel module failed, not installing kernel module.
   updateNIDrivers should be called again after fixing the problem.
   Logging failure...
   Include the file /tmp/niSystemReport.out.gz when contacting
   National Instruments for support.

Please, may you help me with this problem?

Thanks a lot in advance!!!

kiqueus

[kiqueus]

Sorry, the command obviously was: updateNIDrivers !

Thank you again.

kiqueus

[ninevoltz]

Has there been any progress in fixing the init_mm problem with 2.6.29? I stumbled across a message from one of the kernel developers talking about why init_mm was removed, since no in-tree modules use it anymore. He then made the snarky comment about how if nVidia doesn't know how to fix their drivers, maybe they should release the source under GPLv2 so he can show them how to fix it. That leads me to believe that the kernel developers are deliberately trying to force companies like nVidia and NI to open source their driver code. Nevermind the users who are caught in the middle of their pointless battle. MS Windows is starting to look better all the time. It looks like I may be using kernel 2.6.24 forever, because it "just works". 😕

[Shawn B.]

Sorry, for the delayed response I just returned from vacation.

Looking at those errors it looks like you aren't using NI-KAL 1.10.  I would recommend trying to reinstall the NI-KAL 1.10 beta and see if that fixes the problem.  If you get the same error can you attach the output from running niSystemReport?

Shawn Bohrer

National Instruments

[Shawn B.]

There really hasn't been much progress, but mostly because a lack of time on my part.  The kernel developers have removed init_mm because they feel it isn't something native Linux drivers should need to use.  Unfortunately NI-KAL does a number of things that are common for Windows drivers but not very common on Linux.  At this point all I have done is some research to see if there are any alternative ways for NI-KAL to perform the same operations in a more "native Linux" way.  From what I have found it looks like NI-KAL can probably use vmap() instead of using init_mm, but I haven't tried implementing anything yet.

Hopefully this is something we will fix in NI-KAL 1.11 but I can't make any promises.

Shawn Bohrer

National Instruments

[anshuljain]

Shawn,

I plan to install a 2.6.27.x kernel on an Opensuse 11.0 system and use the 1.10 Beta version. Do I need the kernel-syms package alongwith the kernel-source for 2.6.27.x? Also, is there an easy way to uninstall NI-KAL 1.9 and install 1.10 Beta? I tried uninstalling NI-KAL 1.9 and it threw a bunch of errors saying that the Labview RPMS are using NI-KAL RPMs and such.

Regards

Anshul

[Shawn B.]

I guess you are installing openSUSE 11.1's kernel on 11.0?  You should install both kernel-source and kernel-syms.  Additionally you should follow the instructions in the NI-KAL 1.10 README for installing on openSUSE.  Mainly this includes and extra step for configuring your kernel source by creating the Module.symvers file.  You will also probably need to run updateNIDrivers at least once after getting everything installed.

As far as upgrading from 1.9 to 1.10, you don't need to uninstall anything.  Installing 1.10beta is a newer version so it should just upgrade 1.9.

Shawn Bohrer

National Instruments