DAQ not available on Ubuntu 18.04

1

Hi folks,

We had various problems in the Stryker Lab with the PTB on windows systems and decided to migrate to Ubuntu. We want to send udp signals to a NI device. It seems that DAQ is not available on Ubuntu 18.04. How we can work around this issue? Is PsychHID the solution?

Bests,

  • Mahmood
2

http://psychtoolbox.org/docs/pnet

3

There is a demo using pnet specifically for UDP:

http://psychtoolbox.org/docs/udp_send_demo

If you have the instrument control toolbox in MATLAB it also has UDP support cross-platform:

https://uk.mathworks.com/help/instrument/udp.html

… but pnet is faster and super reliable.

4

Sorry for not being clear enough! I am using pnet to send udp signals but MATLAB doesn’t recognize NI device since I wasn’t able to install DAQ.

5

Ah, well NI software support sucks. I used to use NI DAQs, but the ridiculously bloated driver packages moved me to LabJack USB DAQs. What are you using the DAQ for exactly? If it is just for digital I/O then you have much better options than NI, but it may be you use it for recording analog signals. If you can use USB, then I really can’t recommend LabJack highly enough. They have full cross-platform tiny drivers that don’t require stupid masses of junk installed (and no dependancies on DA toolbox). But it may be you have a software dependency that only works using data aquisition toolbox?

For simple digital I/O triggers, arduino’s are also an option. Don’t use MATLAB’s official hardware support though as performance sucks. I have repurposed the legacy arduino code, adding the option to send asynchonous TTLs (i.e. you can send a long 300ms TTL but in MATLAB the function returns immediately, great for variable-length reward triggers).