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NI-KAL on Linux 2.6.15

Hi!

I've managed to install NI-DAQmx Base 2.0.0 on a Debian stable system (after some tricks to let the installer know I do have a configured kernel and to get nikal.c to compile). However, lsdaq shows absolutely nothing with all the ni* modules loaded.

Does anybody have any positive experience with this kernel version?

Thanks!

Pablo B.

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Pablo,

From the information you have given it is really hard to say what might be the problem.  The problem may be related to your kernel version or it might be something else.  Have you tried narrowing the problem down to your kernel?  For example can you get everything to work with 2.6.12, then upgrade to 2.6.15, run updateNIDrivers and see if it no longer works?

Also would you mind posting a diff of the changes you made to the installer and nikal.c, or at least explain the changes you made?  It may give us an idea why it isn't working, and it may help improve future versions of NI-KAL.

It would also be nice to know a little about your setup in general.  For example what hardware are you using?  Since you are on Debian did you use rpm to install all of the packages, or did you convert them to deb packages?

Shawn B.
National Instruments
Use NI products on Linux? Come join the NI Linux Users Community
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Hi Shawn!

Thanks for the quick reply!

I decided to go back to kernel 2.6.8 (which required no changes to nikal.c) and try again; it did not work either.
Then I finally resigned myself to go all the way and installed LabView (using the information from another thread) and it seems to work fine now (lsdaq lists my two boards and the example programs print something else than zeros). I'm guessing that I was missing some library from LabView that was necessary for the NI-DAQmx Base to work (I don't find it very wise that the C API depends on LabView from a non-LabView user standpoint, but that's just IMO).

I haven't tried again with kernel 2.6.15, but my guess is that it should work.

The changes to nikal.c involved commenting out two lines involving a USB #define which does not exist anymore (URB_ASYNC_UNLINK or something along that line), but those are not necessary for kernel 2.6.8.

Bye & Good Luck!

Pablo B.

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Hi,

as far as I have tested nipal (NIDAQmx 8.0) doesn't compile on 2.6.14 or later kernels. You have to stick with 2.6.13 (plain vanilla w/o patches should work fine). On the other hand it seems that the 2.6.9 kernel (which used to be the latest kernel to run NIDAQmx Base 1.5) doesn't work with NIDAQmx 8.0. (But I only gave that kernel one shot, after it didn't work I went straight to 2.6.13).

The best way to go (I think), is to check the kernel the supported distros are using (if you want to use an unsupported distro). It's too bad NI doesn't tell the dependencies or requirements. In my optinion the linux-community would appreciate hard facts like "Kernel 2.6.13, glibc 2.5.3, rpm, ..." rather than a list of supported distros.
-DB
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Hey guys,

I thought I would let you know that NI-KAL 1.3 is now available.  The officially supported distributions can be found on the download page.  "Officially supported" means that these are the distributions that we have tested and thus we can provide support. 

Also, as noted on the download page, just because NI-KAL supports a distribution doesn't mean other drivers, for example NI-DAQmx 8.0, support that distribution.  NI-KAL is the component responsible for interacting with the kernel and if it installs, you should be able to perform you own testing on other drivers such as NI-DAQmx 8.0 if they do not claim support for that distribution.



@bef wrote:
as far as I have tested nipal (NIDAQmx 8.0) doesn't compile on 2.6.14 or later kernels. You have to stick with 2.6.13 (plain vanilla w/o patches should work fine). On the other hand it seems that the 2.6.9 kernel (which used to be the latest kernel to run NIDAQmx Base 1.5) doesn't work with NIDAQmx 8.0. (But I only gave that kernel one shot, after it didn't work I went straight to 2.6.13).


SUSE Linux 10.0 has a version of 2.6.13 which is the newest kernel in the distributions supported by NI-KAL 1.3.  If you are feeling brave you may find that NI-KAL 1.3 will compile on newer kernels, but they have not been tested.



@bef wrote:
The best way to go (I think), is to check the kernel the supported distros are using (if you want to use an unsupported distro). It's too bad NI doesn't tell the dependencies or requirements. In my optinion the linux-community would appreciate hard facts like "Kernel 2.6.13, glibc 2.5.3, rpm, ..." rather than a list of supported distros.


Unfortunately it isn't that easy.  Here is a simple example why...  Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 4 has the 2.6.9 kernel.  NI-DAQmx Base 2.0 officially supports RHEL WS 4.  NI-DAQmx 8.0 does not support RHEL WS 4 (because Red Hat configured the kernel with a 4k kernel stack), but it does install.  You just commented that 2.6.9 didn't work (though you did not say what the problem was).

So do we support 2.6.9 or not?  I suppose it depends on which version of 2.6.9 we are talking about.  Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 4's version of 2.6.9 has approximately 828 patches applied when compared to the vanilla kernel found at kernel.org.  Then there are kernel configuration options...  As previously mentioned NI-DAQmx 8.0 does not work with RHEL WS 4 because then have configured the kernel with a 4k (as apposed to 8k) kernel stack.  If you have ever configured a kernel you know that there hundreds of configuration options.

Really it all comes back to testing.  We do not have the resources to test every version of the vanilla kernel, plus every distribution's version of the kernel, plus every configuration option in the kernel.  Thus we have picked several popular distributions to test, and officially support.  You are welcome to use something else, but we did not test it.

You are welcome to run tests yourself, and post them on the forums.  If you find a bug we will do our best to fix it.

Shawn B.
National Instruments

Message Edited by Shawn B. on 04-04-2006 03:13 PM

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Hi Shawn!

> Really it all comes back to testing.  We do not have the resources to test every version of the vanilla kernel, plus every distribution's version of the kernel, plus  >every configuration option in the kernel.  Thus we have picked several popular distributions to test, and officially support.  You are welcome to use something >else, but we did not test it.

I understand it is impossible to test every possible configuration, as their number is unbounded. However, it might be possible without too much extra work to "condense" the most likely problem items (like kernel options incompatible to the driver, or libc version, etc.) in a distribution independent way. With that, people using "unsupported distributions" would have a good basis to start trying to get the software to work.

Another useful thing (at least for me ;-)) would be if you guys could keep track of the vanilla kernel, but it can be quite a fast moving target sometimes...

Bye & Good Luck!

Pablo B.

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