Upgrading SBRIO O/S from Pharlap?

[ajf200]

We have several SBRIOs sitting around that we’d like to repurpose for a new project. They aren’t too old (maybe purchased in 2018?). 

However I think they all currently run Pharlap, and my understanding is that OS is basically End of Life. 

Is there a way to install a newer OS on the SBRIOs that is supported by LabVIEW or do we have to bite the bullet and purchase new hardware?

[ZYOng]

According to Real-Time Controllers and Real-Time Operating System Compatibility none of the sbRIO run Pharlap. What is the model of your sbRIO?

[AustinMan@NI]

You won't be able to upgrade sbRIOs to NI Linux RT. In addition, older sbRIOs used VxWorks, not Pharlap.

[ajf200]

Ahh, maybe they are VxWorks then. I’ll have to double check the model numbers.

Is VxWorks still fully supported?

[AustinMan@NI]

With the move to NI Linux RT, VxWorks was discontinued several years ago. You will need to use an old version of LabVIEW (2018ish?) to be able to use the boards. As someone who has several VxWorks sbRIO boards, I feel your pain. 

[joerg.hampel]

As a side note, it used to be that the architecture of a real-time device dictated the operating system:

• x86 = IntervalZero Phar Lap ETS
• PowerPC = Wind River VxWorks
• x64 and ARM = NI Linux RT

Phar Lap is discontinued and has been replaced by NI Linux RT.

I don't know of any new PowerPC-based Real-Time devices, so I guess that VxWorks is going away, too.

In other discussions, AustinMan hinted at the fact that ARM devices (sbRIO-96x7) will be out-phased, as well. This sounds like NI is consolidating all their RT devices on the x64 architecture.

Care to comment, David C? 🙂  

[AustinMan@NI]

I am not sure we can correlate processors to OSs. The are cRIOs and sbRIOs the use ARM processors with Linux RT. 

As for OSs:

• VxWorks has not been used in NI products for many years.
  • My understanding is that the move to Linux was to give end users the flexibility of an open-source OS, and access to other applications, etc.
  • VxWorks is a closed OS, which can make it challenging to customize for end user applications.
• Pharlap is an obsolete OS.
  • It offered many benefits at the time it was released (Win API, small footprint, etc.).
  • It is no longer available from IntervalZero  (ETS - Win32 RTOS for x86 (intervalzero.com))
• NI Linux RT.
  • Is supported on both X86 and ARM processors.
  • I am not a Product Manager, so I am not going to comment on the future of ARM processor support.

[rolfk]

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AustinMan@NI wrote:

I am not sure we can correlate processors to OSs. The are cRIOs and sbRIOs the use ARM processors with Linux RT. 

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The way as done by Joerg is fully correct!

Note: x86 != x64 (eventhough all modern Intel CPUs and compatible CPUs can execute in both modes).

Pharlap ETS is always 32-bit (for NI hardware and AFAIK pretty much any other hardware too, as it was tightly married with the x86 architecture for many reasons). One of the main reason NI went with the VxWorks system when looking for a new embedded platform was that Pharlap ETS had no migration path to anything else but the x86 hardware. But the Intel CPUs at that time simply did not offer efficient power consumption options. PowerPC was pretty much the state of the art back then for anything that had to be high end, embedded and power efficient, ARM was still a bit esoteric and mainly focusing on smaller single board embedded solutions. Pretty much every laser printer and many network routers were using PowerPC CPUs at that time. With Apple abandoning the PowerPC and IBM more or less stepping aside in promoting their PowerPC platform, it eventually lost that momentum and was replaced by newer more power-efficient Intel CPUs on the high end side and ARM on the lower end embedded side.

Both Pharlap ETS and VxWorks support has been obsoleted by NI after LabVIEW 2018/2019 depending on the controller, with the exception of PXI Pharlap ETS controllers that were obsoleted after LabVIEW 2020. If you want to support any of those older controllers, you should stay at 2018 or lower. A few of the very old Pharlap cRIOs were obsoleted after LabVIEW 2017.

A good table overview is here: https://www.ni.com/en/support/documentation/compatibility/21/ni-hardware-and-operating-system-compat...

But NI recently pruned it to only show actively supported OSes anymore. This means that many old controllers look like pretty much unsupported since the LabVIEW versions tested to be compatible with Windows 11 didn't support those controllers anymore.

In the additional resources is an Excel table that still contains all the Legacy combinations too down to Windows 7.