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Linux and PEAK-System's CAN Interfaces

The PEAK-System PC-CAN interfaces product family is fully operational with any Linux OS.

Many Linux distributions, or rather the used Linux Kernels, already contain the drivers for PEAK-System's CAN interfaces. The CAN interfaces are then accessed via the common SocketCAN framework as network devices (aka netdev).

If you are using Linux environments missing a driver (e.g. minimized Linux environments, older Kernels) or you want to use our character-based driver (chardev) e.g. in connection with the PCAN-Basic API, you need our PCAN Driver for Linux package and compile the driver yourself.



Drivers Included in Linux Kernel

Key Features

  • Out-of-the-box usage, suitable for most cases
  • Part of the Linux mainline kernel, classic CAN since 3.2 (peak_pci), CAN FD since 4.0 (peak_usb)
  • CAN channels are handled as network devices (netdev)

Check: Are CAN drivers part of your Linux environment?

Open a terminal and type:
grep PEAK_ /boot/config-`uname -r`

All PEAK drivers are listed (y = included in kernel, m = separate module) but this may not work in every Linux environment.


Check: Is the CAN device initialized?

Open a terminal and type: lsmod | grep ^peak

If, for example, a USB-based CAN interface from PEAK is connected and initialized, the output will be at least one line starting with peak_usb.


No Download Necessary

Driver Package for Proprietary Purposes

Key Features

  • Contains sources for chardev and for netdev drivers
  • Monolithic driver in contrast to mainline SocketCAN environment with several drivers
  • Must be compiled for the target system
  • Can be build for real-time Linux extensions like Xenomai or RTAI (RTDM)
  • Enables the use of PCAN-Basic Linux API calls (not possible via SocketCAN)
  • Provides extra information like the bus load (depending on used CAN interface)
  • Support of specific hardware features
  • True hardware time stamps with handling of clock drifts
  • Mainline kernel drivers are blacklisted when using the PCAN driver

When to Use the Package

  • Your CAN application relies on PCAN-Basic for Linux API (based on chardev driver).
  • The Kernel you run is too old to include one of the peak_* mainline drivers you need.
  • The Kernel you run includes peak_* mainline drivers that are out-of-date or might contain issues.

Implementation Details Download PCAN Driver Package Documentation

PCAN-Basic for Linux

API for Connecting to CAN and CAN FD Buses

We provide the PCAN-Basic API to allow the development of your own CAN applications for Linux. Programmers can use the languages C++, Java, and Python 2.x. More information about PCAN-Basic is available at its product web page.


PCAN-Basic Product Page Download Version History

PCAN-View for Linux

Software for Displaying CAN and CAN FD Messages

PCAN-View is a simple CAN monitor software for receiving and transmitting CAN and CAN FD messages. PCAN-View for Linux is based on the NCurses library.

The pcanview-ncurses Debian package depends on the libncurses5 one. Thus, when pcanview-ncurses is downloaded from this website, libncurses5 should be installed first:

$ sudo apt-get install libncurses5
$ sudo dpkg --install pcanview-ncurses-xxx.deb


Download (i386) Download (amd64) Download (arm64) Download (armhf)