LabVIEW and Linux Review

[swatts]

Hello to all you LabVIEW on Linux Curious,

For me 2024 was the year I tried to get to grips with Linux. I think it's been a success, we have delivered 2 projects based on small single board platforms running OpenSUSE and they went very well. But there are things to consider when making the move from Windows.

It is definitely worth the effort, adding some Linux capabilities to your toolbox will pay dividends.

General Linux Comments

Even tho' Windows is paid for it seems to always be wanting to up-sell and advertise, this really gets on my nerves. Whereas Linux feels like a quiet and purposeful place. But there are frustrations!

There are desktops that work in a similar way to Windows and distros often come with a selection of different desktops.

Permissions are everything, by default Linux thinks you are an idiot and can't be trusted with anything.. This includes file locations and hardware resources.. Often this will show up as odd behaviour, rather than error messages that clearly tell you something is going wrong.

VISA works nice when permissions are set correctly, this gives you access to all sorts of instrumentation. Ethernet works fine too (UDP,TCP). Talking to shared libraries is pretty good too, I noticed no real issues connected to an .SO library compared to a .DLL in windows.

If using USB to UART convertors I would use the FTDI chipset, works without extra drivers etc.

I use nomachine to remote into my Linux machines, mostly works really well.

My testing was essentially to use the installed distro until I ran into issues, when I ran into issues I gave up I don't have the time or inclination to battle with an install. The joy of Linux is that installing a new OS is only about 10 minutes of effort (most of which is background).

There are some issues and ugliness with LabVIEW, don't expect the same experience as Windows. Hopefully new users will generate new feedback and this will improve. Main one is DON'T use the scroll bar to navigate, it buffers and buffers and buffers. I noticed some old-fashioned handling of 2D arrays on the front panel, will be doing some investigation on this. The Sound VIs don't seem to work at all (Sound in Linux is a nightmare).

Review of Versions

Starting off with the versions I found to be most robust and easy to use.

OpenSUSE

Tumbleweed is the rolling release - https://get.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/#download 

Leap is the stable release - https://get.opensuse.org/leap/15.6/ 

This is the distro we have used at SSDC to build professional systems using the LattePanda boards. It has worked very well.

Stand-out features are that you can install LabVIEW and drivers using the Yast GUI only, so no command line. The other is that you can still log in as root (Ubuntu uses "sudo" commands for root access). This makes life a little easier for programmers new to Linux permissions. When you run into issues, login as root. If the issues go away, you know it is a permissions issue. I used this a lot at the start!

I always end up back on this distro and even tho' the default desktop settings are strange to a Windows user they can be changed. 

Debian

https://www.debian.org/

The feeling I got from Debian was solidity, it just feels well put together and not flashy. Which makes it an excellent platform for LabVIEW work.

Video can be found here - https://youtu.be/or568jGSV50 

Ubuntu

https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop

Install is nice, but slow. Ubuntu-Cinnamon 24.04 is beautiful IMO and not annoyingly different to Windows for navigation. There seems to be more support for Ubuntu (I think it is favoured in the US).

Norm Kirchner and I have observed issues with it breaking (my assumption is that it is a power saving issue, but this is something we have only recently observed)

Video - https://youtu.be/UHjBMFGB-7M

Video - https://youtu.be/CXYGtna3yXM

LuBuntu, XuBuntu

https://lubuntu.me/

https://xubuntu.org/

These are lightweight versions of Linux and use desktops based on xfce (Xubuntu) and LXQt (Lubuntu), this makes them attractive for small platforms and complete distro distribution (like CTI). I observed some User-interface issues with buttons on the front-panel on one of these, so need to investigate them more in 2025.

They are definitely the way to go for CTI as they are about 4Gb to distribute, rather than 8Gb for OpenSUSE. They should also give some performance improvements on small SBCs.

Zorin OS

https://zorin.com/os/download/17/core/

I really like Zorin OS, the windows can be made all wobbly and it's very pretty and amusing to use. I did have some issues with it, in that the windows navigation behaved strangely when minimising LabVIEW windows. But I did an update and it all looks and feels good now. This would definitely be my daily driver as it is just nice to use... Will carry on testing...

It's based on Ubuntu so support should be good.

Linux Mint

I was quite interested in this one, but I couldn't get LabVIEW to install. Which made me sad.

Fedora

This one didn't install LabVIEW either, just chucked up lots of errors that I couldn't be bothered to investigate.

Rocky

This one didn't install LabVIEW either, just chucked up lots of errors that I couldn't be bothered to investigate.

What's left to do?

RHEL (Red Hat Linux), AlmaLinux OS

Annoyingly Red Hat have a load of license based barriers to installation, which is one of my main motivations for leaving the Microsoft world, apparently AlmaLinux is the free alternative. Because I ran into issues with Rocky I gave up on this family.

My customers seem to want RHEL, so I guess I will have to do the hard work in 2025.

Lubuntu and Xubuntu

These distros are definitely worth more work from me. Georgios Tsalavoutis has built a distro for CTI at 4Gb and that's really worth progressing with.

I'm going to start talking about a dedicated LabVIEW Distro - and start a list of hardware that has been tested against this. If NI are not interested in running with it I might see if we can do it from the CTI. The whole experience will be a lot easier if you can just download an ISO and install it on a target without having to go through the rigmarole of testing that I have. In conclusion the barrier to entry is still too high for many.

Finally, I failed in my objective to get something running headless, but have been offered help and am content that it is possible. My new objective for 2025.

Talking of which

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[Dhakkan]

This is great! Steve.

My limited experience with distro-hopping led to similar outcomes!

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is the primary driver in all the desktops of my household.

OpenSUSE MicroOS is our home server OS. This is an atomic (immutable) flavor that I've successfully used to deploy containerized apps. I wonder if a production-grade setup can be done with LabVIEW on the desktop variant of this OS. I would be happy to explore this aspect, if there is interest.

For educational purposes, my son and I have installed Zorin's Education flavor quite successfully. Users (undergraduate students) have not reported any issues with it.

Happy New Year to one and all!

[swatts]

That's some excellent vindication matey, I really appreciate knowing that.

It'll be interesting to see what another year of experience brings..

Many thanks 

[AustinManinTown]

You and Norm are not the only ones to have issues with Ubuntu. Canonical 'upgraded' the kernel mid-LTS release, which stopped drivers compiling (DKMS) into the kernel.

While it is not officially supported by NI, CentOS is a (very) good alternative to Red Hat. LabVIEW and the drivers work. It has a decent UI and gets updates. I will say that the online support for RH is excellent. That is itself may be worth the license fee. 

As for LabVIEW, there is a KnowledgeBase article that highlights the differences between Windows and Linux:

What Are the Differences Between LabVIEW for Windows and Linux Operating Systems? - NI

Anyone moving from Windows to Linux is going to have a learning curve. A lot of the issues people run into are Linux issues (e.g. file permissions) that you do not see in Windows. It is very easy to knock Windows OS, but it does a lot of handholding for you.