Advanced HMI on Linux?

[KanHaz]

Has anyone tried to run Advanced HMI on Linux? I didn't find anything when I looked it up. I know Linux has a program called Wine that will allow it to run Windows executables on it so I thought it was a possibility. If anyone has tried please let me know how it went.

Thanks.

[Archie]

I have done some limited testing on Linux with 3 packages installed:

Mono-Complete
Mono-Winforms
Mono-Basic

Once they are installed, I have been able to compile AdvancedHMI with Visual Studio on Windows, copy the files to the Linux machine, then at the command prompt type

mono AdvancedHMI.exe


More testing will continue to ensure further compatibility.

[KanHaz]

When you tested this what files did you copy? I have only copied the .exe in the past so I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

[Archie]

I copied everything in the debug (or release) directory except the OPC files. I did find that if you use the MessageDisplayByValue, it references the speech library which is not part of Mono, so I also copied the speech DLL from the GAC directory on my PC

[Noe]

These are excelent news Archie, but what distros are you pointing at? Do you think not-x86 processors would be possible someday? I am thinking in thing like Raspberry Pi and making extremely cheap HMIs! But for that it would not require a very high tech specs from the system I guess...

[Archie]

I have been doing my testing on a BeagleBone black with an arm processor and Linux Debian. This should work just as well on a Pi. But I will say that getting everything with Mono to work is no small task. The Mono packages are not built for these processors so it all has to be compiled from source which takes 8-10 hours.

[jsorah]

Archie, did you have to do any soft links to DLL's in your solution when using mono?

I was having issues (Incomplete Solution error) running my project until I executed this in either the AdvancedHMI/bin/Debug or AdvancedHMI/bin/Release directory on the linux machine:

Code: [Select]

ln -s MfgControl.AdvancedHMI.Controls.dll ".\\Mfgcontrol.AdvancedHMI.controls.dll"
ln -s AdvancedHMIControls.dll ".\\AdvancedHMIControls.dll"


** I also want to note this is on CentOS 7 **

[Archie]

I ran my tests on Debian. I had to install mono, mono-winforms, and gdiplus libraries. The copy everything from the bin directory, except the OPC files, to the Linux machine. To run the program , at a prompt:

mono AdvancedHMI.exe

If you have difficult problems, this will give you more details on startup:

MONO_LOG_LEVEL=debug mono AdvancedHMI.exe

[Noe]

Great news for those who want to build extra cheap HMI's and do not want to mess with Linux (nor have the time): Raspberry Pi model 2 will run a free version of Windows 10. Hopefully AHMI will be able to run on the new quad core device without any special fix or patch, and smoothly!

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/2/7962179/raspberry-pi-windows-10

http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/

[Archie]

Great news for those who want to build extra cheap HMI's and do not want to mess with Linux (nor have the time): Raspberry Pi model 2 will run a free version of Windows 10. Hopefully AHMI will be able to run on the new quad core device without any special fix or patch, and smoothly!

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/2/7962179/raspberry-pi-windows-10

http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/

This is really cool and good news. It will give the Beagleboard a run. But is there a touch screen to couple to it that will be able to beat the cost of a Beaglebone Black with a 7" 4D Systems touch screen at $55+$89=$144


After a quick search I see that SainSmart makes a 7" touch screen for $72. If that works with the Pi2 and Windows 10 has a driver for it, you can't beat the $35+72=$107 for a touch screen HMI.

[Noe]

They have planned to release one this year:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/21/pi-pads/

No idea about price, but so far its low hardware prices can't be beat, but most important, community and development have been more active on RPi than beagleboard. Not only hobbyism, also industrial.

[Noe]

Also, depends on what you plan to use about its hardware. If you just want to use it as a HMI, I would go for RPi. If you want to use it also for control, Beaglebone has lot more I/O support, by far.

Windows is the advantage that I see for RPi, as for final user it will be always a way to stay in the comfort zone and just see it like "any other PC".

[Archie]

I'm interested to see how the Pi2 compares in speed to the B+.The boot time for the B+ is painfully slow. The Beaglebone Black is much faster. I 100% agree that being able to run Windows gives a huge advantage and you don't have to worry about incompatibilities with Mono on Linux.

[Noe]

Hopefully AHMI will run with no hassle in Windows 10.

[Archie]

Reading a little further into it I see they mention running "universal apps". In other words, apps based on WPF/XAML, so my suspicion is that AdvancedHMI will not run on this version of Windows since it is a winforms app