NIDAQmx on Fedora Core 5 How-To

[ninevoltz]

Oops, I was wrong. The modules do load ok on this new kernel and seem to work ok too. I forgot to reboot with the new kernel before I ran updateNIDrivers

[ninevoltz]

I wrote a shell script yesterday that will speed up the kernel updating process, I am attaching it here along with the fully modified nikal.c.

[ninevoltz]

From the last Fedora Core 5 kernel release "feature-removal-schedule.txt":
Long story short, NIDAQmx will break in 2008.

What:    USB driver API moves to EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
When:    Febuary 2008
Files:    include/linux/usb.h, drivers/usb/core/driver.c
Why:    The USB subsystem has changed a lot over time, and it has been
    possible to create userspace USB drivers using usbfs/libusb/gadgetfs
    that operate as fast as the USB bus allows.  Because of this, the USB
    subsystem will not be allowing closed source kernel drivers to
    register with it, after this grace period is over.  If anyone needs
    any help in converting their closed source drivers over to use the
    userspace filesystems, please contact the
    linux-usb-devel@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list, and the developers
    there will be glad to help you out.
Who:    Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>

[Shawn B.]

Actually, NI-DAQmx 8.0 does not provide USB support so it won't break in 2008.  NI-DAQmx Base 2.1 currently provides support for USB DAQ devices, and it does it entirely in userspace, so it will continue to work after these changes.

Currently the only NI drivers that use the USB API in the kernel is our NI-488.2 driver for our USB-GPIB devices (The messages you see in the kernel logs come from NI-KAL which is a shared component).  We are of course aware of the changes that will go into the kernel in 2008 and will use this "grace period" to evaluate our alternatives in future USB drivers for Linux.

Shawn B
National Instruments

[ninevoltz]

Just updated to Fedora Core 6 today. NIDAQmx still works ok with kernel 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.

Just out of curiosity, when can we expect the next update of NIDAQmx for Linux?

Thanks,

John

[Neil_S.]

John,

Thanks for posting to the NI forums.  We are always evaluating the possibility of releasing newer versions of our drivers on various platforms.  However, no definite timetable is available.  This timetable is directly affected by both the technical effort that is required for the upgrade as well as the demand for the driver.  Let us know if you have any additional questions.

Regards,

Neil S.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments