CodeWeavers Crossover with LabVIEW

[Michael Aivaliotis]

I came across this app from CodeWeavers which essentially allows you to install any Windows app on the Mac (without requiring a Windows OS license). Has anyone tried this with any of the LabVIEW versions?

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ Aug 18 2008, 11:12 AM)

I came across http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">this app from CodeWeavers which essentially allows you to install any Windows app on the Mac (without requiring a Windows OS license). Has anyone tried this with any of the LabVIEW versions?

I haven't tried it recently! But CrossOver is basically based on Wine (with some extra hacks to make it sometimes work better for standard applications like the unavoidable Office Suites from an unnamed company in Redmond and in the case of Mac of course for the unmatched apps like iTunes etc.)

LabVIEW 5 and 6 did run already many years ago (around 2000 or so) fairly well on Wine of that time. But its installer was also a lot lighter and less problematic than the super duper multi mega monster installer of recent LabVIEW versions. And also before LabVIEW 7 you could in the worst case just copy an entire LabVIEW tree over to the Wine system and run it from there without the need for an installation.

On the other hand Codeweaver has done tremendous work on Wine to support the MSI installer technology and it is currently in a state that allows a lot of applications to install with little or no problems.

So I think you have a realistic chance to get LabVIEW itself running on Wine and/or Crossover. Wine versus Crossover is here likely to make no difference since CodeWeavers has LabVIEW for obvious reasons not on their radar, although I think installation of Wine on a Mac is still supposed to be quite a bit of a hassle whereas CrossOver would seem to give you a smooth installation experience.

Of course things like IO drivers are most probably not gonna work at all. This likely is even true for VISA and slightly possibly even TCP/IP. NI-DAQ and just about any other NI-something would be a waste of time to even attempt to try.

I stopped with dabbling with LabVIEW on Wine after LabVIEW for Linux got available. It simply made not much sense anymore to deal with difficulties and some strange screen drawing artefacts when LabVIEW was run on Wine.

Rolf Kalbermatter

[Val Brown]

QUOTE (rolfk @ Aug 25 2008, 11:30 PM)

I haven't tried it recently! But CrossOver is basically based on Wine (with some extra hacks to make it sometimes work better for standard applications like the unavoidable Office Suites from an unnamed company in Redmond and in the case of Mac of course for the unmatched apps like iTunes etc.)

LabVIEW 5 and 6 did run already many years ago (around 2000 or so) fairly well on Wine of that time. But its installer was also a lot lighter and less problematic than the super duper multi mega monster installer of recent LabVIEW versions. And also before LabVIEW 7 you could in the worst case just copy an entire LabVIEW tree over to the Wine system and run it from there without the need for an installation.

On the other hand Codeweaver has done tremendous work on Wine to support the MSI installer technology and it is currently in a state that allows a lot of applications to install with little or no problems.

So I think you have a realistic chance to get LabVIEW itself running on Wine and/or Crossover. Wine versus Crossover is here likely to make no difference since CodeWeavers has LabVIEW for obvious reasons not on their radar, although I think installation of Wine on a Mac is still supposed to be quite a bit of a hassle whereas CrossOver would seem to give you a smooth installation experience.

Of course things like IO drivers are most probably not gonna work at all. This likely is even true for VISA and slightly possibly even TCP/IP. NI-DAQ and just about any other NI-something would be a waste of time to even attempt to try.

I stopped with dabbling with LabVIEW on Wine after LabVIEW for Linux got available. It simply made not much sense anymore to deal with difficulties and some strange screen drawing artefacts when LabVIEW was run on Wine.

Rolf Kalbermatter

Yes, I would agree with this. I haven't investigated v8.6 but there were considerable problems with early release versions of 8 that I did try. And, yes, the biggest problem were i/o and driver related.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

QUOTE (Val Brown @ Aug 26 2008, 01:37 AM)

Yes, I would agree with this. I haven't investigated v8.6 but there were considerable problems with early release versions of 8 that I did try. And, yes, the biggest problem were i/o and driver related.

Ohh and don't even attempt to try and run a timed loop. It's internal mechanisme was last time I checked tightly coupled with drivers that go directly into the Windows kernel. Wine is an application level API translation software. They do not have nor want to try to provide a kernel level translation layer so far.

Rolf Kalbermatter

[Val Brown]

QUOTE (rolfk @ Aug 25 2008, 11:42 PM)

Ohh and don't even attempt to try and run a timed loop. It's internal mechanisme was last time I checked tightly coupled with drivers that go directly into the Windows kernel. Wine is an application level API translation software. They do not have nor want to try to provide a kernel level translation layer so far.

Rolf Kalbermatter

Precisely. Fusion is getting pretty good but it still has some limitations when it comes to i/o and drivers.