Regardless of the industry, programmable logic controllers are a key component in a manufacturing process.

Without Microsoft's Windows on your laptop, you have no interfacing capability to programmable controllers.

Is there any industrial controls development in the Linux community?

Any open source interfaceing between variable frequency drives (VFDs), human machine interfaces (HMIs), or programmable logic controllers (PLCs)?

Is anyon interested in kicking-off such a project?
I have done some C and JAVE programming. I have industrial experience with HMIs, VFDs, and PLCs.

I haven't heard of, though I'm not that keen on such things. Linux is still relatively young (especially if you count what has happened after the "explosion" of Linux users), and it cannot offer everything that's already been done by some other OS'. but people like you surely can correct this and write as much those things you mentioned as you wish..

If the industry had interest towards Linux, a real interest, they'd start asking who writes them such things. People really would be needed..but it seems they're not interested in what they use (I wouldn't be either, probably, if I didn't have to care how things are done, only how much I get money - but I do have to care how things are done). Yet that causes problems sometimes...last time my car was in a car service, they tried getting some data out of the computer from it (even cheap small cars have small computers inside them, like watches do, though people don't know it), using a Microsoft Windows - and it crashed four or five times before succeeding. It's scaring really..

Ok, this didn't actually belong to this thread. But the point was, if there aren't too much "industrial controls" in Linux yet, you can do some, and I encourage you to it. I'd help if I could, but I'm afraid my skills are elsewhere..

It doesn't look like there are many commercially available programs to interface with industrial controls available for other than DOS/Win platforms. The comm programs are probably written in C or other non-OS specific language, so it shouldn't be difficult to port them to other platforms; the source code's already written. It could be an interesting project though...

Linux is used quite a bit in embedded applications these days. Here's a link that discusses Linux in the factory http://www.manufacturing.net/ctl/article/CA413458.html.

Here's a link that discusses using a Linux based PC talk to a PLC http://www.xtronics.com/toshiba/comp_link.htm.

The EPICS control system toolkit can be deployed on Linux as well as a host of other operating systems. There is more than one form of driver/interface to industrial PLCs supported in this open-source package. See http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/

--- rod.

Trumpf brake presses are Unix based. I had to build a Deb NFS box for one at work to handle file storage and transfers to our MS Server.A lot of the European equiptment is Unix and Linux based and Siemens controllers are beginning to be the norm in new machines.