What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

I'm sure most people use Windows for their DS, but I am curious how many people have gotten it working on another OS?

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

There was one programmer on our team that had a MacBook. I think the trouble was he could never get LabView or the DS to install in the first place. So he'd just do math on his Mac and watch the rest of us program on our PCs.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

Same. One of our programmers had a Mac and we could never get the DS to work properly.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

I was trying to make a joke, even looked up bad OS's... but i found that windows 8 is the worst... soooo we usually use windows 7

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

We had to use a MacBook Pro as a Driver Station at one of our offseason competitions, but it had Windows 7 installed on it via Bootcamp. It worked perfectly fine. We now use an Ultrabook with Windows 8 and it's awful.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

Well, considering that the DriverStation is a closed-source Windows application, at the end of the day everyone will be running it on a form of Windows, whether that form be native, virtual, or otherwise (e.g. WINE). I use a MacBook Pro (dual-booting OS X and Windows 7) for development and have no trouble running the driver station software, utilities, (formerly) LabVIEW, Inventor, etc. Our primary driver station computer is a generic PC laptop, also running Windows 7.

Edit: I suppose there have been some unofficial apps that allow you to drive your robot from a smartphone. However, they are not legal for competition.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

We used Windows 8 for our first competition and had issue connecting to the field a couple times. We switched to the Classmate and never had an issue after that.

We never got the problem resolved with the Windows 8 machine but one person thought it may have had to do with the IP protocol and it not matching with the FMS.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

Not sure I understand the question. The official DS released by First/NI is only supported on Windows. As XP is retired official support from FIRST/NI will only be Windows 7/8.

Unofficial versions of the DS can be found floating around chief but they can never be used in competition only for testing/learning purposes.

Are you asking which operating systems people use during competition or which do they use during testing?

The teams that have macs for driverstations are either running windows via bootcamp or via virtual machine, that aren't using the Mac OS.

Hope this helps,
Kevin

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

I have been able to install it on a Mac, under VirtualBox, and on a Linux computer under Wine.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

And as such, you are still running it in a Windows environment (Not any of the Operating System available for Selection in the Poll). In no circumstance are you running it on a different operating system other than a Windows enviroment. Just so happens your Window OS lives on top of another OS and is provided virtually, but its still a Windows Environment.

There are DS clones, that will run *natively* on other operating systems. They have been reverse engineered by FRC members and provided as-is. Most recently a iPhone app was released. But these can never be used during a competition because it is not guaranteed to work. There are safety features built-in to the NI provided one. It is not clear what the original question was asking.

I would love to run the DS natively on Mac Beleve me, it just isn't support.

Running a virtual windows environment via virtualbox, or wine, does not mean you are running it on a different OS. It just means you are clever enough to know that you can emulate a windows environment on top of the native operating system.

I guess the original question would have been more clear if it was asked "Do you run the DS on Windows Natively or do you run it in a Virtual Machine for Competition and What Do you use when not in competition."

Then you would get responses like "We run Parallels on a Mac, with Window 8, or use Boot Camp, or we use Virtual Box etc." All of which are trying to provide a windows-like execution environment.

Regards,
Kevin

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

I wouldn't run it with WINE. I'm surprised you managed to get the labVIEW runtime installed on WINE, but I guess it's possible. I would be really afraid of having an issue with a USB driver, which is flaky enough under windows, cause your robot to stop working. It's fine for practice, but remember, if you use it at competition, you won't be able to get any help from the FTA's.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

Interesting issues with field connectivity while using Windows 8. We're now on our second Driver's Station Laptop with Windows 8 and haven't had any problems with it.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

We've seen tons of teams use windows 8 with no problem on the field, but the radio tool crashes on start up with my windows 8 laptop, with a fresh install of windows, both with the default and updated drivers for all network devices.

Our single issue with field connectivity happened when windows recommended us to install a new network driver due to reliability issues with the previous version. This new driver caused our driver station software to stop responding during a match. We were able to recreate the problem again, and we rolled back the driver to fix the problem. It's possible that the same driver is on windows 8 computers.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

More proof that Window 8 sucks.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

First, the drivers don't typically come from Microsoft- they usually come from the manufacturer of the device. That is pretty poor "proof" that Windows 8 "sucks." Not to mention that the post you quoted explicitly stated that the DS runs fine on tons of Windows 8 laptops.

Secondly, I'm not sure why you are hijacking your own thread to make an unsupported attack on an operating system. I get that Windows 8 is a polarizing OS, but this thread is a strange place to discuss it.

Finally, back to the actual topic at hand- We use Windows 7, but will be debuting a Windows 8 laptop at championships.

I highly recommend against using anything other than Windows 7 and Windows 8. Regardless of what virtual OS you are using to run the DS on a Mac or a linux box, you are going to have a bad time. Every time the FTAs and FTAAs see a macbook coming out to the field, we grab the backup classmate because we know it is going to be a problem.

If you bring out a supported device running the DS in a fairly standard configuration, the field staff will be more than happy to spend a little bit of time to help get it working. If you bring out a computer running the DS in an emulated environment or running on an unsupported OS, you probably won't be getting much help.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

I am all about the driver station without a computer, iPhone only!

Maybe I will make a version for mac as well!!

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

I'd like to see the RobotOpen/Sasquatch system put into the mix. Running a robot through Chrome? Yes, Please?!

I see 99% Windows as a CSA. Mostly 7 with some older Vista in the mix. The trend now, based on this season, is touchscreen Windows 8. Simplifies the interface for the DS a fair bit. Just gotta watch it in the heat of the match.

I've seen a few Macs with Windows over the past few years with no issues. Once, even seen an attempt at a Linux powered DS but it was more of a curiosity to see if it could be done. They had the software up and running but it failed the field connection test. I am unaware if they ever succeeded in full field functionality.

Whatever you use, make sure you work out the bugs before competition. Also have spare DS(es) ready to go. The field will have a classmate on hand if you need it but it's setup for basic operations only. If you're using anything beyond the drive and camera, you're not gonna have that functionality.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

I want to underscore what Harsharan is saying here.

The Ultrabook works fine, BUT, it has a touch screen. If you don't know EXACTLY what you are doing, it's a disaster!

For example: We ran hot goal detection on the laptop. This allowed us to fine tune the detection to changing lighting condition right before the start of every match. It worked really well. That is, until the FTA was looking at our DS right before a match and reached up to point at the screen and made contact! It threw our detection calibration right out the window. Let's just say, we missed the hot goal that match.

The issue is that a live touch screen in a competition environment might not be a good idea.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

How to turn off the touch screen in Windows 8.1 Update

1. Windows-x (my favorite shortcut)
2. Device Manager
3. Human Interface Devices
4. HID-compliant touch screen (name of this may vary on your machine)
5. Right click, select Disable

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

Understood. But, as I said, if you know what you're doing, then it's not an issue. We take advantage of it for many things. We use it for calibrating the vision code right before a match. So, turning it off really doesn't help us. We just need ta ask people to NOT TOUCH it please!

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

Sort of off topic, but in this years game animation, who all noticed that the driver stations laptops were all Mac's, despite the fact that the Driver Station cannot run on Mac OSX?

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

That's just Dave having a little fun with us. Think of it as an easter egg.

Re: What operating system do you use on your driver station?
 

They're all running Boot Camp :)