What operating system do you use on your driver station?

[The Doctor]

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

[Cyan]

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.

[Max Boord]

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

[Briansmithtown]

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

[MrTechCenter]

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.

[Domenic Rodriguez]

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.

[underdog1924]

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.

[NotInControl]

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

[The Doctor]

Originally Posted by NotInControl

The official DS released by First/NI is only supported on Windows.

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

[NotInControl]

Originally Posted by The Doctor

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

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

[magnets]

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.

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by MrTechCenter

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.

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.

[MrRoboSteve]

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

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by MrRoboSteve

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

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!

[team3245]

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?