Best Linux Distro for PLC programming?

Hi there PLC aficionados,

I have a quick question for you. Do you use Linux in your integrator/automation engineer/Technician role? If, yes which distro do you use or which one would you recommend for running PLC programs like studio 5k and 505 Workshop?
Also, what would you say the learning curve would be in migrating from a Windows platform to Linux, if all that will be done is accessing PLC programs and occasionally connecting directly to them via USB/Ethernet. In other words, is it more complicated to set up communication protocols.

Thanks,
AD


"To live outside the law, you must be honest"

Rockwell software is Windows only. At best, you would run a Linux distro as your host operating system and windows as a VM.

It is my understanding that most of the development software for PLC applications is available for Windows only. As such, the rather crude answer to your question would be "none". There may be some solutions for Linux by now, I just don't know about them yet.

I've tried various configurations for WINE and PlayOnLinux to run Rockwell products. No dice. Probably some obscure component I'm missing. lol

Thank you for your feedback. I don't know why I was under the impression that you could run Rockwell software in Linux, but now that is out of the question it will be easier to move forward!

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a linux adopter, but I use a Windows VM in KVM for things that require Windows.

Personally, I'm a Linux user, I haven't used Windows at home for almost 10 years. Professionally, we're stuck with Windows.

I think the main reason it would be difficult to run Rockwell Software in a Linux environment is the sheer number of processes and services. Take a fresh VM and install RSLogix5000 v13. Look at the number of services. Install newer versions, one at a time and watch the number of processes and services grow.

I spend a disappointing amount of time helping people with such a wide range of software issues. Something won't install. It crashes after install. Won't open this file but will open that one. Splash screen comes up but software never starts. Fatal error when I copy/paste. Fatal error when I search for something. Failed to make a runtime.
Failed to make a runtime. Failed to make a runtime. Failed to make a runtime. Private directory blah blah. Failed to make a runtime. It barely works on Windows, Linux is unfortunately out of the question.

Don't even try to run the software native in Wine, not even Photoshop will run that way and thats less advanced than control software.


I run every software in each own VM, and one VM for misc software. So i could theoretically run Linux as a base with all VMs in VMWare but i dont think the organization would approve of that sadly. If it was a smaller company i could probably get away with it. I was almost not allowed to install firefox even

ojz0r said:

I run every software in each own VM, and one VM for misc software. So i could theoretically run Linux as a base with all VMs in VMWare but i dont think the organization would approve of that sadly. If it was a smaller company i could probably get away with it. I was almost not allowed to install firefox even

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I do - one* VM for Rockwell, one VM for Siemens, one VM for office-type tasks, one VM for Miscellaneous, and one VM called "virus bait" which gets called on every time I'm not completely confident about what I'm about to do. Whenever it starts acting up, it gets wiped and created fresh.

I'm luckily in a smaller company and have managed to keep IT hands off OT infrastructure, so my host is a Macbook Pro.

*I actually have several Rockwell VM's, ranging back to XP SP2 to support legacy equipment. But 99% of my work is done in one VM running Windows Server 2019

ASF said:

99% of my work is done in one VM running Windows Server 2019

Click to expand...

Is there an advantage to running Server?

Server 2019 is very much the same as Windows 10, except it's much more bare bones. Less bloatware that you can't uninstall (looking real hard at you, Xbox), and therefore much faster. You also have a little more flexibility in how you manage things than with a Windows 10 OS, because it's aimed at IT professionals rather than your Aunt Ruth.

The trade off is that there are a handful of things that you wouldn't have to think about in Windows 10 because it's assumed and done for you, but in Server you have to think about it and decide and do it yourself. Nothing major, just things like installing some .NET frameworks and so on that would ordinarily just be done for you.

There are five of us in my company running MacBook Pro's and Windows Server 2019 VM's, and it was in hindsight a great decision.

How do you deal with activations with multiple Windows VMs? do you guys have valid licenses lying around for Win7 and WinXP?

You can have more than one copy as long as they don't run concurrently.

If you have a VLK, you can run up to 4 concurrently.

This remind me a question, what about if you use a dongle with licensed activation and have several versions of logix 5000 , each version on a VMware , will that work out ?

Hypervisors tend to only allow one device per VM.

For example, I can't have a USB stick seen by two VMs