lsdaq gives "libnipalu.so failed to initialize" on Ubuntu 10.04

[Roalt]

I'm trying to get the NI-USB-6211 working on a Linux Ubuntu 10.04 (32-bit) machine. Due to the nature of the device, I cannot use Red Hat or the other supported linux operating systems.

I tried to follow the different steps found in http://forums.ni.com/t5/Multifunction-DAQ/Is-there-a-Linux-driver-for-the-NI-DAQ-USB-6211/td-p/64352..., including processing the rpms as alien, installing them as .deb package, installing the rpms also, running updateNIdrivers, rebooting.

When finished, I tried to run lsdaq and I get the follwoing output:

lsdaq

--------------------------------

Detecting National Instruments DAQ Devices

Found the following DAQ Devices:

libnipalu.so failed to initialize

Perhaps you need to run updateNIDrivers

/usr/local/bin/lsdaq: line 7: 16653 Aborted                 /etc/natinst/nidaqmxbase/bin/daqmxbase_listdevices

In /var/log/messages the following messages appear:

Feb 10 08:18:58 dasa200u daqmxbase_listdevices: [nipalu]  Warning: source/lib/linux/linLoadKern.cpp:168 - libKernelDriverLoad: Failed to open nipalk, errno: 2

Feb 10 08:18:58 dasa200u daqmxbase_listdevices: [nipalu]  Warning: source/initcln/initcln.cpp:147 - Posix: Init kInitClnPackage: kernelDriver: failed! status=-50204

Feb 10 08:18:58 dasa200u daqmxbase_listdevices: [nipalu]  Warning: source/package/posix/ulibEntry.cpp:179 - initialize: unable to load NI-PAL. status=-50204

I would appreciate if anybody can tell where to look further or what else I can try?

[irwan]

Most probably that is because the kernel part didn't load properly. Did the 'updateNIDrivers' step completes successfully?

If it did, find out if nipalk loads successfully. nipalk is loaded by /etc/init.d/nipal script. did that script runs successfully?

what's the output of 'lsmod | grep ni'?

if nipalk loads successfully, find out if there's /dev/nipalk device node. /dev/nipalk is created by /etc/init.d/nipal script.

libnipalu.so basically just opens /dev/nipalk and start talking to the kernel driver. If it can't connect to the kernel, it'll fail to load.

[Roalt]

Thanks! I wasn't aware the nipalk module need to be running.

Now it works fine:

bash-4.1# lsdaq

--------------------------------

Detecting National Instruments DAQ Devices

Found the following DAQ Devices:

NI USB-6211: "Dev1"    (NI-USB-6211)

--------------------------------

[RoelJansen]

Hi Roals,

I am experiencing the same problem you had 'libnipalu.so failed to initialize'. You solved the issue by running nipalk. Could you be a more specific how you solved the issue. How to run the nipalk module?

Thanks for your time!

Roel

[irwan]

If you install our software correctly, then nipalk should just loads during boot time. Try

dmesg | grep nipal

and see if there's any error message. And try going through my suggestion in my past posting in this thread.

[Roalt]

You can also look for the kernel module related to the nipal module and do a 'modprobe' manually. I think we had problems with starting the automatic scripts because they were not compatible with out version of linux.

In the end we stopped using the National instruments cards for our project because of the horrible linux support. It's a petty because the hardware is quite good but the generic linux support, and using the cards via programming C is not upto standards I expect from such a company.

It looks like they (national instruments)  try to convert you to using their software products, while we need to use the cards in a low-level/ real-time environment.