FRC Driver Station on Linux!

[indiv0]

Hello all!

Dunno is this has been done before (from searches all I find are unsuccessful attempts), but I've managed to get FRC Driver Station working under wine.

I'm running Arch Linux x64 with a 32-bit wineprefix, mono, and dotnet20sp1 installed.
I installed the 2012 NI Runtime (32-bit) and then the 2013 Driver Station, and after a bit of fiddling it now controls the robot without a hitch!

No problems so far, minus the fact that it registers 4 joysticks as being connected (I only have 2).

Just felt like sharing, in case anyone else was wondering if this was possible.

P.S.: Would this setup be legal at an FRC competition? I plan to try it out during practice day at GTRW, after checking with the judges of course. There's nothing in the rules AFAIK that says we must use Windows.
P.P.S: I wasn't sure what to do with the images so I put them on imgur. If you would like me to resize them and attach them or simply move them to another host just say so.

[RufflesRidge]

I agree that the rules do not appear to require Windows. If you do have any issues though it is likely your FTA and CSA will unable to help you and will suggest you use a loaner Classmate.

[ILikePizza555]

Oh god wine...

Better to just use windows, or make your own linux port.

[indiv0]

Unfortunately my understanding of the Driver Station is not in-depth enough to do this yet, but I plan to try!

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by indiv0

I plan to try it out during practice day at GTRW, after checking with the judges of course. There's nothing in the rules AFAIK that says we must use Windows.

How did it work?

[joelg236]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

How did it work?

I'm also interested. I've experimented with this before, and have never been able to enable a robot with it. Best I've gotten is a messy GUI.

[StevenB]

That's officially way cool. Props for getting it working!

That said, as much as I love Linux, I'd never use this on the playing field. There are enough things that can go wrong already, and if you're running Linux on the DS, it's almost guaranteed that Linux/Wine is going to take the blame if something breaks - whether it's at fault or not. At home I'd absolutely use it.

[gluxon]

Wait.. let me understand this. WINE handled the entire LabVIEW runtime without complaints? O_o

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by gluxon

Wait.. let me understand this. WINE handled the entire LabVIEW runtime without complaints? O_o

As a Certified LabVIEW Developer who works for a company that does Linux software, I've actually tried running a LabVIEW app I wrote for windows under Linux.

Linux seems to take the LabVIEW RTE just fine under Wine without complaining. The development environment, however, doesn't work properly.

I don't know if OP actually tried it at competition (we're both on 4343). I advised him of what everyone here has basically said. That I was unaware of any rules against it, but that the FTA would not be able to support them if they ran into troubles. Also, that it may not behave nicely with all the behind the scenes stuff FMS does that just a driver station + robot doesn't do.

[indiv0]

Unfortunately, due to our problems at GTRW, we didn't managed to get to many practice matches (I believe we only played 2-3), and to reduce any variables which might have affected our testing procedures, I decided against trying out DS on Linux at the competition. I'm really sad I didn't get a chance to try, but then again there's always next year (commanding the younger programmers as a mentor to do my bidding )

[panicnot42]

Very impressive! I've felt in the past that someone needs to compile all the FRC tools that work on linux into one package. Maybe even a full blown FRC distro?

[ad1217]

I have been trying to get the Driver Station working under wine (just to make testing a bit easier), and have gotten it all running and connected to the robot, but it doesn't seem to read the joysticks correctly. It sees them, and the indicator light turns blue when a button is pressed, but the axes don't appear to be read. Did you run into this problem/have any suggestions?

[Greg McKaskle]

The DS uses DirectInput libraries to open and read the joysticks. Can you test whether the Control Panel>>Game Controllers lists them, and whether the test panel works as expected including the axes?

Greg McKaskle

[riftware]

I'd love a step by step set of instructions - I have crossover office installed ( a pre-setup version of wine) but I could actually install the wine packages directly if need be. I'm running ubuntu and I'm really just looking to avoid having to use my win7 vm for doing development work.

[indiv0]

Originally Posted by ad1217

I have been trying to get the Driver Station working under wine (just to make testing a bit easier), and have gotten it all running and connected to the robot, but it doesn't seem to read the joysticks correctly. It sees them, and the indicator light turns blue when a button is pressed, but the axes don't appear to be read. Did you run into this problem/have any suggestions?

No I did not have this problem. Sorry, I wish I could help more but I'm not sure what else could be necessary.

Originally Posted by riftware

I'd love a step by step set of instructions - I have crossover office installed ( a pre-setup version of wine) but I could actually install the wine packages directly if need be. I'm running ubuntu and I'm really just looking to avoid having to use my win7 vm for doing development work.

I'd love too but unfortunately I'm far away from my former FRC team ATM so i can't get a copy of LabView. It was a very simple process though. I don't remember the exact steps but it was essentially:

sudo pacman -S wine
wine LabViewRT_32.exe
wine DriverStation.exe

I honestly didn't have to do more than that.

I use Arch Linux, so replace pacman with apt-get for ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install wine

Let me know if it works.