Distressing news about LabView for FIRST

[dmlawrence]

Email thread with NI customer service:

I am a participant in the FIRST Robotics Competition. National Instruments
is a sponsor of this competition, and as such, has made a version of Labview available to all participants (http://usfirst.org/community/frc/content.aspx?id=10934). Unfortunately, the version they offer is for Windows only. As I Mac user, I was looking forward to Labview's support for the Mac. Is there any way I can obtain a Mac version of Labview for use with FIRST?

Thank you,
David Lawrence

Hi David,

We are currently not offering LabVIEW with Mac for the FIRST
competitions. Can you dual boot your machine to work with Window's
Programs?

Thank You,

Technical Representative
Geoffrey Allan

I cannot dual-boot my computer without incurring significant additional cost, in addition to the inconvenience that the process entails.

Please see this related topic from last year's competition:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...56&postcount=9

Is there any way to make a Mac version available? If you cannot do this, is there someone else I can contact?

Thanks,
David

The Mac Version will not be available for the competition this year. Only the LV 8.5.1 for Windows.

Thank You,

Technical Representative
Geoffrey Allan

I am very disappointed that LabView will not be available for the Mac. The program already exists in a Mac version - there is no technical reason that would prevent it from being distributed. I am sad to say that this reminds me of the advertised "Mac compatibility" in 2007, which actually amounted to nothing more than running Windows on a Mac.

It is my belief that the lack of a Mac version will discourage innovation and is contrary to the philosophy of FIRST - For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology...

Comments are welcome.

David

[Thermal]

Well i'm not too sure how coding on a mac gives you more innovation, or coding on windows discourages innovation, but thats moot.

Theres no reason for them to restrict it if they already have it running on OSX, doing this just causes frustration towards the few guys out who do run OSX.

I'm sure you have access to a PC with windows, so I guess you'll just have to deal and do you work on windows. Hopefully next year it'll be available for OSX users.

[dmlawrence]

Just to clarify, the LabView components that download code to and interact with the cRIO are not available for Mac. However, the main LabView environment is available. Windows will definitely be required to download code, but the programming itself does not require Windows.

[chris31]

I understand people wanting to run the programming software on Macs or Linux. I recognize that it might be slightly less convenient. But I highly doubt you have no Windows machine anywhere that would work perfectly fine for what you need.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by dmlawrence

Just to clarify, the LabView components that download code to and interact with the cRIO are not available for Mac. However, the main LabView environment is available. Windows will definitely be required to download code, but the programming itself does not require Windows.

I'm not sure this is true. I'm 90% certain that you need to have all the requisite modules installed to effective work with the code. Trying to work with the code without the RT module installed is going to be fairly crippling, as you won't be able to open the code as a project, edit shared variables, implement RT FIFOs, and a host of other things. So While it's probably possible to open the code on a Mac for viewing, I don't think editing it on a Mac will work very well.

As for the larger issue, you have to understand where NI is coming from. They don't have a huge customer base to begin with, and Mac and Linux exclusive users are going to be an even smaller portion of their user base. So the portion that will need Mac/Linux support AND RT and FPGA support is going to be pretty vanishingly small. Meanwhile, the development costs for this are going to be rather high. Xilinx doesn't even make an FPGA compiler for the Mac, after all, and NI depends on the Xilinx compiler for the FPGA module. So right off the bat, NI would either have to develop their own FPGA compiler, move to a different hardware platform, or port the module to some Mac-compatible FPGA compiler (which I can't find and suspect doesn't exist). Similarly for moving RT support to the Mac platform. Given the size of the market and the expense of the project, I don't think NI is going to support the FIRST platform on a Mac for a very long time. They might support the modules on Linux at some future date when Linux penetrates more into their market.

Long story short, Mac has a pretty small market share, especially in the science and engineering fields, and developing software to support it simply isn't worth it to NI.

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally Posted by dmlawrence

Email thread with NI customer service:

I am very disappointed that LabView will not be available for the Mac. The program already exists in a Mac version - there is no technical reason that would prevent it from being distributed. I am sad to say that this reminds me of the advertised "Mac compatibility" in 2007, which actually amounted to nothing more than running Windows on a Mac.

It is my belief that the lack of a Mac version will discourage innovation and is contrary to the philosophy of FIRST - For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology...

Comments are welcome.

David

Firstly, no one on your entire team has a windows machine to code the robot? really?!?! I am truly shocked, almost to the point of disbelief

Second, I understand your complaint about the philosophy of FIRST, but unfortunately I think we all need to look at this more pragmatically. The pragmatic view of this is that we are being given something F R E E and this a donation from a corporate sponsor.

If you can afford either the dual boot (which I believe is less than $100) or the Mac version of labview on your own I would say that would be the best option.

Trying to cajole them to give the mac version is probably going to a) cause you unneeded frustration and b) is probably not going to pan out with the result you want.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by Stephen Kowski

Firstly, no one on your entire team has a windows machine to code the robot? really?!?! I am truly shocked, almost to the point of disbelief

There are those school systems that are mac only (mine for example). That's nothing to be shocked about.

[Greg McKaskle]

I don't remember whether I've posted this here, but a few months ago, I tried out Parallels and the FIRST LV code. The networking was a bit confusing at times, dealing with virtual NICs, and if you don't have plenty of RAM, you will get hit with some penalty boxes as things swap, but it does work. I used a MacBook for some of development of the vision code.

On that same machine, I also had LV for Mac, but rarely used it since the RT doesn't run on the Mac anymore. My advice would be to go for boot camp or bulk up on RAM and use a VM such as Parallels. If you are also able to convince local sales office or a member of the NI academic department to seat you with a Mac version, you will be able to use it as a dashboard (sans vision), and you could do some modeling and data investigation. But don't think that it will do everything transparently. Unfortunately, the I/O layers don't allow for that.

[dmlawrence]

Originally Posted by Stephen Kowski

Firstly, no one on your entire team has a windows machine to code the robot? really?!?! I am truly shocked, almost to the point of disbelief

Of course there are team members with Windows machines available. As I mentioned above, we will need Windows regardless to download code to the cRIO. In my opinion, the real value of the Mac edition is that team members that live in an all-Mac household (myself included) will have the opportunity to study and learn about Labview in a more comfortable and familiar environment. Many of these team members may not be able to obtain a Windows license, or may not possess the time or technological acumen to set up a working Windows environment.

Second, I understand your complaint about the philosophy of FIRST, but unfortunately I think we all need to look at this more pragmatically. The pragmatic view of this is that we are being given something F R E E and this a donation from a corporate sponsor.

I do not expect NI to port new components to the Mac simply at the request of a FIRST team. However, it is another matter entirely to provide a piece of software that already exists. I understand that the existing Mac version has some additional limitations, but in many use scenarios, it would be far more convenient.

If you can afford either the dual boot (which I believe is less than $100) or the Mac version of labview on your own I would say that would be the best option.

The Labview student edition is available for Windows only. As far as I can tell, the cheapest version of Labview for Mac is the full development system, at $2599. Dual boot presents additional challenges, like creating an extra hard drive partition - which might require the purchase of a larger hard drive.

Trying to cajole them to give the mac version is probably going to a) cause you unneeded frustration and b) is probably not going to pan out with the result you want.

Agreed on both points. Oh well.

David

[whytheheckme]

The LabView FIRST version significantly differs from the regular version (it's not just a few libraries added.) There are entire features that are removed from the program (such as FPGA modification), as well as some other features that are added. It isn't as simple as giving out licenses to the commercial Mac port.

Honestly, I'll be happy if they manage to get the Windows version out the door in time for build. I know the guys (and gals) at NI are working very hard to get the piece of software ready for us to use. I don't think that pressuring them to released a mac port is a great priority.


Jacob

[Joe Ross]

I was able to copy the WPI libraries from the windows version to my linux LabVIEW version, and then open my robot vis and do some editing. I did not try to go back to Windows, though. With some finagling, it should be possible to do some of the development on a mac or linux native version of LabVIEW, but as Kevin said, there are a lot of things that wouldn't be available.

Of course, buying a VM and an extra copy of windows, or using boot camp would be cheaper then buying a native version of LabVIEW.

[Joe Hershberger]

Originally Posted by dmlawrence

Of course there are team members with Windows machines available. As I mentioned above, we will need Windows regardless to download code to the cRIO. In my opinion, the real value of the Mac edition is that team members that live in an all-Mac household (myself included) will have the opportunity to study and learn about Labview in a more comfortable and familiar environment. Many of these team members may not be able to obtain a Windows license, or may not possess the time or technological acumen to set up a working Windows environment.

I can see some value in this.

Originally Posted by dmlawrence

I do not expect NI to port new components to the Mac simply at the request of a FIRST team. However, it is another matter entirely to provide a piece of software that already exists. I understand that the existing Mac version has some additional limitations, but in many use scenarios, it would be far more convenient.

The Labview student edition is available for Windows only. As far as I can tell, the cheapest version of Labview for Mac is the full development system, at $2599. Dual boot presents additional challenges, like creating an extra hard drive partition - which might require the purchase of a larger hard drive.

I know that Danny Diaz has mentioned that requests for Mac / Linux versions of LabVIEW would be considered... email frc at ni.com. It must be understood that if the request is approved, what you would be getting would not include any of the FRC specific libraries or any of the RT related software. One reason for not including the Mac / Linux versions with the kit is to eliminate the confusion about full support for development on those platforms.

I think that if you use one of these other platforms natively, you should not expect to develop robot code on it. As stated by Joe Ross, it can be done. Unfortunately it will be cumbersome and error prone. The dashboard applications, on the other hand, are a perfect fit for these native platforms.

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by Joe Hershberger

I know that Danny Diaz has mentioned that requests for Mac / Linux versions of LabVIEW would be considered... email frc at ni.com.

To my knowledge everyone so far who has asked for a non-Windows version of the LabVIEW base application (Mac/Linux) has gotten it...

-Danny

[Joe Ross]

Here was the post about requesting the mac or linux versions of LabVIEW: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...56&postcount=9

[p4ndiamond]

Well im a student part of team 2242. I have tested the Ni Lab view with all OS that are used today.

It is incompatible with

Windows 7 (im a beta tester)
Windows XP x64bit

It is compatible with windows xp 32 bit
Vista 32/64 bit OS.

I run Vista 64bit natevely and i have all the other OS in Virtual machine.

system is DIY build Specs

8 gigs ddr2 1100
6x Raptor RAID 0
Q9550 Quad core processor
780I mobo
Nvidia GTX 260
Watercooling DIY.

That sums it up.
Here is my youtube. You can ask me questions here or on there. Im always available to help.

http://www.youtube.com/user/p4ndiamond