RHEL 5 - DAQmx or DAQmx Base

[mariogiov]

Hi all,

Apologies for awakening an older thread, but can anyone testify to getting DAQmx (not DAQmx-base) working on any RHEL system? The compatibility matrix here:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/$CXIV/ATTACH-AEEE-8NDLKZ/$FILE/LinuxSupportMatrix.xls

suggests that there is not a version of RHEL since 3 that works properly with it, except perhaps RHEL6 under circumstances that remain shrouded in mystery (to me, at least).

Under CentOS 6.2, when I installed NI-DAQmx Base 3.5.0 and then NI-DAQmx 8.0.2, lspci showed a kernel module loaded ("nidaqmx_NIXS9x") for my PCI card (6259) but lsdaq failed to detect any valid devices. I find it unlikely that this is related to the 4K stack size or the 32-bit addressable memory issue unless the software autodetects this and foils my install somehow.

In any event, I'm recompiling the kernel with a stack size of 8K (although from the looks of the original .config file it may have already been using that? the option for 4K was not selected) but I'm not expecting much.

--> Can anyone explain why this driver works with OpenSuse 11.0 (as documented here: https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-2808) but not with other distros or even with later version of openSuse? Is it related somehow to the kernel versions? If I can fix this by just compiling my own kernel I would certainly do that (and post a guide!).

Thanks,

Mario

[SyamCR]

Yes. We've been using DAQmx v8.0.1  successfully on RHEL 5.3 (32-bit) Workstation (without recompiling the kernel).

However, you'll have to update NI-KAL v2.0 which supports RHEL 5. JoeFriedchicken says above that one needs to install NI-KAL first and then install DAQmx. But if I remember correctly, I had some error when installed that way and nowadays, we always install DAQmx first and then install NI-KAL. The NI-KAL installer will automatically update the existing version.

Now, it seems that NI-KAL v2.2 is released, which supports RHEL 6 (and OpenSuse 11.4).

http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/2791/lang/en

Also, a minor update to DAQmx (8.0.2) has also been subsequently released.

I have not yet used these new versions.

In case you are interested in the type of hardware, we've been using this driver setup for PCI-6528 and other digital I/O boards.

Hope this answers some of your queries.

[mariogiov]

SyamCR --

Thanks very much for your reply. I am still stymied by this whole setup but it is interesting to know that someone has it working.

Are you using the DAQmx driver with LabVIEW 2011? When I do the install, everything appears to work correctly (nilsdev reports my device and I can see that the nidaqmx_NIXS9x kernel module is in use by the PCI 6259 card) but in LabVIEW's Block Diagram interface there are no DAQmx modules available: the "Measurement I/O" submenu is simply empty. The program detects correctly that the card has 32 analog inputs, but that seems to be about as much as it will do for me.

It is frustrating to have this much difficulty with software that is purported to be "supported." Did you find any good resources beyond the README files accompanying NI-KAL and DAQmx? Technical support at National Instruments doesn't seem to know any more about this process than I do.

Thanks again for the information,

Mario

[SyamCR]

Sorry. I'm not using LabView at all. We use C++ for developing our applications. So far we've got everything working smoothly on multiple machines.

[mariogiov]

Aha!

I wound up finally getting this all working and wrote it up as a HOWTO document here:

https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-22110

Thanks for the input Syam!

Mario