Support Policy for Packages Installed Through OPKG

Updated Jul 13, 2025

Reported In

Operating System

  • LabVIEW Real-Time (NI Linux Real-Time)

Issue Details

I have used OPKG to install additional packages to my NI Linux Real-Time system, for my project.

Are all the packages hosted by the NI feed supported?

Solution

To understand which NI OPKG packages are supported and which are not we must first look at the structure of the NI Linux Real-Time feed.

The feeds are separate by their function and the structure looks as follow:

  • main - The Core Feed
  • extra - The Extra Feed
  • ni-main - The NIFeeds "Main" Feed
  • ni-lv${release} - NIFeeds "Labview" release Feeds (where ${release} corresponds to the LabVIEW programming environment set in NI MAX during the installation)

All packages that are downloaded & installed through from the "extra" feed are by default not supported.
The "extra" package feed contains packages which might be useful to NI Linux Real-Time users, but which are not officially supported by NI. There is also no guarantee that these packages will exist in subsequent NI Linux Real-Time Image versions.

In order to determine if the package you downloaded comes from the extra or main feed you may use the script attached to this Knowledge Article to figure that out.
You may call the script in the following way: <PATH_TO_THE_SCRIPT>/feed_locator.sh <PACKAGE_NAME>
The output will be URI of the package. If the link at any point contains an extra in it, the package lies on the extra feed and is therefore unsupported by NI.

Additional Information

For more information on the NI feeds, please visit our GitHub repository linked in the "Related Links" section of this article.

Attachments