How-to: Installing LabVIEW 8.2 under Ubuntu 7.10

[Trafferth]

Hello all,

I am sure there are scientists and engineers who would like to install LabVIEW on their Ubuntu box, but have been unable to do so because the binaries are supplied as .rpm files, not .deb. The following is a short how-to that shows how I installed LabVIEW 8.2 on my Ubuntu 7.10 box.

The information I used originally came from the National Instruments forums:

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/messag...129697#M284896

Specifically, there is the following link in that thread that leads to a how-to guide:

http://www.ilbazaar.netsons.org/2007...isty-fawn-704/

As you can tell from the URL, however, the guide is in Italian. Hopefully the following 'remastering' of the how-to will be of use to English-speakers. I have only tested this with LabVIEW 8.2 under Ubuntu 7.10, but the original thread suggests that the procedure outlined below should work with LabVIEW 8.0, 8.2, and 8.5 under Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10.

Once installed, I found that all the front panel objects were present, and the majority of the block diagram (programming) functionality of LabVIEW was also available. Programming features were missing from 'Measurement I/O', 'Vision and Motion', 'Control Design and Simulation', and 'SignalExpress'. Perhaps these can be added from the Windows disks, although I have not tried it yet. I expect the functionality that can be achieved in the following guide will be sufficient for most people, however.

Good luck!

Trafferth


Installing LabVIEW 8.2 under Ubuntu 7.10

The problem with installing LabVIEW 8.2 under Ubuntu is that it is distributed using .rpm (Red Hat Package Managment) files rather than Ubuntu's native .deb (Debian) format. This can be overcome using alien, as described below.

1. Open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal)

2. Make a temporary directory in your home folder:

mkdir ~/LV8pkg

3. Copy all .rpm files from CD main directory to a directory on the hard disk, e.g.:

cp /media/cdrom0/*.rpm ~/LV8pkg

4. Update apt:

sudo apt-get update

5. Install alien, libdb1-compat, and libosmesa6:

sudo apt-get install alien libdb1-compat libosmesa6

6. Navigate to the .rpm files on your hard drive:

cd ~/LV8pkg

7. Use alien on the .rpm files (each line is a separate command - the terminal's paste hotkey is <CTRL><SHIFT><V>):

sudo alien -k labview82-appbuild_8.2-1_i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts labview82-core-8.2-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts labview82-desktop-8.2-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k labview82-examples-8.2-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k labview82-help-8.2-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k labview82-pro-8.2-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k labview82-ref-8.2-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts labview82-rte-8.2-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k labview82-vxi-8.2-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts labview-rte-aal-1.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts niexfinder-base-1.0-7.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts niexfinder-labview82-1.0-7.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts niwebpipeline20_dep-2.0-5.i586.rpm

The conversion procedure will take a while. Note that one of the 'niexfinder' commands may give an error about not being able to find the 'finder' directory, but this does not seem to affect the conversion.

8. Install each of the generated .deb files separately (again, each line is a separate command - the order is irrelevant):

sudo dpkg -i labview82-appbuild_8.2-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-core-8.2-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-desktop-8.2-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-examples-8.2-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-help-8.2-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-pro-8.2-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-ref-8.2-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-rte-8.2-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-vxi-8.2-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview-rte-aal-1.1-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i niexfinder-base-1.0-7.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i niexfinder-labview82-1.0-7.i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i niwebpipeline20_dep-2.0-5.i586.deb

9. You can now close the terminal:

exit

10. LabVIEW should now appear under Applications > Programming > LabVIEW 8.2

11. You may have to point LabVIEW at your web browser when attempting to find examples. If you are using Firefox it will be located at /usr/bin/firefox

[phyrko]

Nice howto, thanks. I can comfirm that it works equally well with LabVIEW 8.5.

One thing is that the two packages in your list (niexfinder-base, niexfinder-labview) also give errors in the dpkg install step. The NI Example Finder seems to work fine though.

[Trafferth]

Hello all,

Just an update: the above how-to seems to work fine for under Hardy for LabVIEW 8.2 as well - see screenshot!

At the time of writing, there remains an odd problem with running LabVIEW under Ubuntu - when attempting to tile the front panel and the block diagram, the system will hang. Perhaps this is linked to Compiz - I shall investigate.

Regards,

Trafferth

@ phyrko: I am glad the how-to was of use. I only ever get errors at the conversion stage, however - the packages install without complaint. The example finder works fine for me too.

Just out of interest, do you get the hanging behavior when attempting to tile the editor windows?

[Trafferth]

Hello all,

Regarding the hanging with the tile command - this seems to be a conflict between LabVIEW and Compiz, as suspected. The fix is simply to disable visual effects and LabVIEW then works without a hitch.

I don't know if this is specific to Hardy or not - I have installed 8.04 over my previous 7.10 installation, so I am unable to check. Perhaps someone else can try this and see?

- Trafferth

[carpediem1337]

I'm wondering how to install LabVIEW on the x64 version of Hardy. I already have the 32-bit deb files..I tried doing "sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture xxxx.deb" but I get an error. Here is my terminal output:

sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture labview82-core_8.2-1_i386.deb 
dpkg - warning, overriding problem because --force enabled:
 package architecture (i386) does not match system (amd64)
(Reading database ... 123659 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace labview82-core 8.2-1 (using labview82-core_8.2-1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement labview82-core ...
Setting up labview82-core (8.2-1) ...
sort: open failed: +1: No such file or directory

Help would be greatly appreciated.

[vaibshah]

Hello all!
I recently started working on Ubutu and had to install Labview 8.2 on it.

Just yesterday joined this forum and I am really happy to have installed Labview 8.2 on my Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. Yes, the steps described above, by Trafferth, work perfectly with 6.06 also.

However, I had to change some directory names in few commands. I have saved the commands which worked finally.
So here is an updated version, for anyone who wish to install LabVIEW 8.2 on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

Once again, I am just repeating Trafferth's commands with updated directory names.


==========
mkdir ~/LV8pkg

cp /media/cdrom0/*.rpm ~/LV8pkg

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install alien libdb1-compat libosmesa6

cd ~/LV8pkg

sudo alien -k labview82-appbuild-8.2.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts labview82-core-8.2.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts labview82-desktop-8.2.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k labview82-examples-8.2.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k labview82-help-8.2.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k labview82-pro-8.2.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k labview82-ref-8.2.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts labview82-rte-8.2.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k labview82-vxi-8.2.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts labview-rte-aal-1.1-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts niexfinder-base-1.0-7.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts niexfinder-labview82-1.0-7.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k --scripts niwebpipeline20_dep-2.0-5.i586.rpm

sudo dpkg -i labview82-appbuild_8.2.1-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-core_8.2.1-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-desktop_8.2.1-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-examples_8.2.1-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-help_8.2.1-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-pro_8.2.1-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-ref_8.2.1-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview-rte-aal_1.1-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview82-vxi_8.2.1-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i labview-rte-aal_1.1-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i niexfinder-base_1.0-7_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i niexfinder-labview82_1.0-7_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i niwebpipeline20-dep_2.0-5_i386.deb

exit
==============

Once again, SINCERE THANKS TO TRAFFERTH. I DO NOT HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH EXAMPLES.


Best regards,
Vaibhav

[anshuljain]

Vaibhav,
Were you able to install NI-KAL, NI-VISA and DAQ too?

-Anshul

[Trafferth]

@ carpediem 1337:

I'm afraid I don't have any direct experience with trying to install LabVIEW on 64-bit linux systems.

According to the NI developer forum, it doesn't look like installation is possible on linux 64-bit in general, although a few people have attempted it - see:

http://forums.ni.com/ni/search?board...q=linux+64-bit

The only thing I can think of is if you try the --force-all option at the dpkg stage, i.e.

 sudo dpkg -i --force-all package-name.deb

Beyond that, I don't know what else to suggest. Let us know how you get on, though!

Good luck!

Trafferth

[pavleb]

@carpediem1337

Hi I have the same problem on Ubuntu 8.04 with LabView 8.2 My system is 32 bit.

Does anyone has any idea what is missing?

[frumple]

I was facing the same problem to install LabVIEW 8.5 on my AMD64 Ubuntu 8.04, alien complained about architecture difference.

After a whole night trying different methods I've came to a procedure that works. All you need are the LabVIEW RPM packages, rpm2cpio and cpio utils, here are the step-by-step instructions:

1 - mkdir ~/labview
2 - cd ~/labview
3 - cp LABVIEW_INSTALL_MEDIA_MOUNT_POINT/*.rpm
4 - for each of the RPMs run the following command:

rpm2cpio RPM_FILE | cpio -idv

Don't mind to try *.rpm in the above command, I doesn't work Unfortunately it must be file by file or you can automate the process using a script.

The above command complete unpacks the RPM, after all the RPMs are processed there will be an ~/labview/usr/local/ folder containing all LabVIEW's files.

6 - sudo mv usr/local/* /usr/local/

7 - It's already installed! Just create a launcher that points to /usr/local/natinst/LabVIEW-8.5/labview

OBS: If you need to remove LabVIEW just remove the /usr/local/natinst and the 5 libraries added to /usr/local/lib

The result shown in the attached jpg is promising

Eduardo