what RTOS? open-source and NI cRIO-9068?

[awallin]

Hi all, two questions:

1.

AFAIK there are about three viable real-time alternatives on Linux: RTAI (oldest, best performance?), Xenomai (OK performance), and RT-preempt (worst? performance, but least patches to be applied to the standard kernel).

The NI whitepaper gives little or no clue about on top of which RTOS the "NI Linux real-time" is built. Would it not be nice to give credit to the right people who developed the open-source rt-kernel?

Ofcourse all three of these rt-kernels/systems also run on PC (x86) hardware, so we should see NI Linux real-time on the PC also soon?

2.

Given that NI has now jumped on the open-source train, is it viable to use the NI cRIO-9068 using completely open-source software?

OR is a current full (expensive!) NI LabVIEW license with real-time and FPGA modules still required?

Conversely, I would assume that NI is required by open-source licenses (GPL) to release a large part of NI Linux real-time? So am I going to be able to buy any of the many-many ARM A9 embedded platforms out there (some considerably cheaper than the 3 keur cRIO-9068!) and install NI Linux real-time on it?

thanks!

Anders

[Michael.Phillips]

Anders,

Great questions! We'll soon be migrating information presented in the NIWeek sessions on NI Linux Real-Time into a FAQ, but I'll attempt a quick response.

NI Linux Real-Time is built with the PREEMPT_RT patchset (rt.wiki.kernel.org). It's a great community, and we're proud to be working with them.

If you are interested in obtaining the source for the open source software on the new cRIO-9068, please contact licensing@ni.com. We're excited to see what our customers will do with the vast Linux ecosystem that is now available to them. I've talked to several customers at NIWeek who are already using open source packages in their cRIO-9068 applications.

If you're interested in using C/C++ to program the cRIO-9068, we've packaged Eclipse CDT and an appropriate tool chain to help you get started (download: http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/4286/lang/en) (getting started: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/F7E87E6075E4259886257B750050CB6B). If you have an NI cRIO target, you can then use the FPGA Interface C API to connect to your LabVIEW FPGA application.

Keep watching the NI Linux Real-Time community for more!

Michael

[justwakingup]

hmmm.  licensing@ni  (did anyone hear of github.com) for examples of other Zynq based offerings on github see  https://github.com/enclustra or https://github.com/adapteva/parallella-platform 

[Michael.Phillips]

Developers on the NI Linux Real-Time team (who use git regularly) are thinking that a public git repository would be the best solution long-term for both NI and our customers, but we're still working through how best to go about it (github being one option).

[evandrorech]

National Instruments plans to port the RT Linux and LabVIEW Real-Time for use in third-party targets, as was possible in some desktops (http://www.ni.com/white-paper/8239/en/)? Will be possible, for example, porting it to beaglebone black (which is also an ARM, as the new NI targets)?

Thanks!

Evandro

[BradM]

evandrorech,

The whitepaper you linked to describes the hardware requirements for installing one of NI's RTOSes, PharLAP ETS, to consumer-grade hardware. It does not describe NI Linux Real Time at all (a search of Linux turns up 0 results).

[Sanjay_C.]

Evandro,

Sorry for the delayed reponse. To more directly answer the question you bring up:

It is indeed possible to port our Linux to third party hardware; in fact, you can get our source from licensing@ni.com. However, it's important to note that our Linux is designed for our specific hardware. As a result, it's more efficient to instead consider applying the -rt patch https://rt.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page to Linux yourself in order to run Linux RT on 3rd party hardware. This way, you do not have to contend with the customizations that NI has made to better tailor NI Linux Real-Time to run on NI hardware.

In light of the caveats of running NI Linux Real-Time on 3rd party hardware, we are not currently planning to support LabVIEW Real-Time on 3rd party hardware at this time (with respect to the NI Linux Real-Time OS). We will continue to offer LabVIEW Real-Time Deployment licenses for setting up RT PCs in the form of the NI Phar Lap/ETS OS.

[evandrorech]

Thanks for the reply!

What a pity not to use LabVIEW RT for Linux on 3rd party devices... I really like programming in LabVIEW and would like to use it on all platforms in my daily!

[ingdb]

Hello awallin,

I think it should be quite easy possible to use the ni linux kernel on boards using the same processor the crio 9068 is running on (Zynq ZC702). All necessary patches should be under the linux gpl. I want to give it a try on a xilinx zynq evaboard, but I am ot sure when.

kind regards,

Matthias

[BradM]

ingdb,

The only thing that I would caution is to make sure to use the proper first-stage bootloader that will properly configure the multiplexed I/O (MIO) for that board and that the LVFPGA bitfiles for the 9068 will not load properly on non-NI hardware (for the extended multiplexed I/O).