Chickens or eggs?

The role Linux plays in test and measurement is a classic chicken-or-egg conundrum. Many engineers who want to use Linux because of its stability hesitate because of a lack of software development tools and instrument-card drivers. In turn, companies hesitate to develop Linux products; they opt to wait for a demand. The test industry needs a major player to drive the Linux market. Agilent Technologies and National Instruments are probably the only companies with enough clout to do that, yet both wait. To its credit, NI has ported LabView to Linux and has released a driver for its IEEE 488 interface cards. But the company has released only a beta version of a driver for one series of its data-acquisition cards, and currently, NI doesn't support the driver. So if it doesn't work for you, you're sunk. Some third-party drivers are freely available, but they may lack access to hardware features you need.

Agilent Technologies is even further behind. Despite the company's vast Unix experience—Agilent VEE originated on Unix—the company has no Linux version of VEE. To the best of my knowledge, none is in the works.

Both NI and Agilent are missing an opportunity to advance the Linux market for test and measurement. Both companies have the clout to make Linux a viable alternative to Windows, yet both sit back and wait for the market to lead them, rather than lead the market. NI need only develop more Linux drivers so users can control instrument cards under Linux as easily as they can under Windows. Agilent needs to port VEE and its I/O libraries to Linux and supply a driver for its own IEEE 488 interface cards and for NI's IEEE 488 cards. Most VEE programmers write programs for rack-and-stack systems, so Agilent doesn't need drivers for other I/O cards just yet.

To my knowledge, just two companies—Microstar Labs and United Electronic Industries (UEI)—have developed Linux drivers for their data-acquisition cards. Both companies actively support their Linux drivers, too. UEI has gone a step further by porting its LabView VIs to Linux. Those VIs let programmers control the company's boards through LabView, eliminating the need for code that talks directly to the driver. But neither Microstar nor UEI has the clout to drive Linux into the mainstream. Linux needs the muscle of an Agilent or NI to get out of the chicken-or-egg loop.

*Note: TAMS (Test & Measurement Systems; www.tamsinc.com) and IOtech (www.iotech.com) also have Linux software for test and measurement.