Migrating PharLap Application to NI Linux RT

The migration from NI Phar Lap ETS to NI Linux Real-Time means migrating your application from one operating system to another which takes several steps. This article is part of a series on migration to NI Linux RT:

1. Determine compatibility

2. Provision your PXI controller

3. Install software

4. Migrate Phar Lap application to NI Linux RT

To migrate your application to NI Linux RT, you will need to review the differences between the two operating systems, update and recompile your application to run on NI Linux RT, and then perform any required verification and validation testing to confirm that your application meets your specifications and requirements.
 

1. Review Under the Hood of NI Linux Real-Time for an overview of the NI Linux RT operating system.
2. Review the Real-Time Module on NI Linux Real-Time Targets topic in the LabVIEW Real-Time Module Help for comparisons to and differences from previous Real-Time Operating Systems. A few general considerations are listed below:
   1. For NI LinuxRT targets, you can create and distribute packages to clients through NI Package Manager or SystemLink. You can create opkg packages (.ipk) on NI Linux Real-Time targets if you install the LabVIEW Real-Time Module. Your clients can install packages through SystemLink or from the command line on the NI Linux Real-Time target.
   2. User management is different on NI Linux RT. The OS provides different user profiles, for example lvrt runs under lvuser.
   3. If you are using C/C++libraries, make sure they are updated.
3. Migrate your application to run on the NI Linux Real Time OS in your development environment, following a similar process to converting DAQmx VIs to run on cRIO 904x.
   1. For LabVIEW development, open your existing project in the LabVIEW version that you determined in Determining Compatibility for Migrating from PharLap to Linux RT. If your application requires running models on your PXI controller (either from LabVIEW Model Interface Toolkit or VeriStand), make sure that you have the correct toolchain required to recompile your modesl in the Shared Object (.so) format. If you are developing your models in LabVIEW you can find considerations about the model compilation toolchain in the Using Models from LabVIEW VIs section of the VeriStand manual, for Mathworks models you can check this knowledgebase instead
   2. Review your application code and update any Phar Lap OS specific functionality, such as File Path constants, project configurations, 3rd party libraries.
   3. Once your application is updated, compile and run your application on your PXI controller.
   4. For debugging issues, you can use Console Access to directly interact with the NI LinuxRT operating system.
   5. For other issues, leverage the NI Linux RT community.
   6. Review Shipping Examples to help you learn key concepts or to serve as a starting point for applications you create: Use the getting started examples, located by default in the <Public Documents>\National Instruments\YYYYY\Examples\Getting Started
   7. Once updated, compile and run your application on your PXI controller.

Next Steps