Linux?

[Cjmovie]

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

The cRIO runs VxWorks, made by Wind River. The C/C++ compiler is from Wind River.

I do share your sentiment about Linux; I'm posting using Ubuntu

Which just so happens to be a UNIX-like RTOS. Really, it's a lot more suited to a robot - tons less overhead, and the fact that it's a real-time OS gives its schedular a much more deterministic outcome. That's exactly what you want in an industrial or controlled setting. A standard OS is not good, because it doesn't guarantee as much about process run times.

The compiler itself contained in the WindRiver workbench is from the GNU toolchain. As far as I can tell, the only important difference here is that WindRiver includes the libraries it needs to link with, and a method for actively debuggin/loading the modules into the kernel. If you could find a way to load these without using WindRiver (or, alternatively, find that this section of WindRiver is written in Java, as is the majority of the IDE), you could very easily work from Linux.

You can port just about anything you want from UNIX operating systems. It supports most (if not all, I'm unsure) of the POSIX API.