Linear plasma generators are widely used to study plasma surface interaction issues for fusion research. In this paper it is described why dedicated experiments for PSI are necessary and what the requirements are to reach the parameter regime relevant for ITER. An overview is given of some typical devices, particularly PISCES-B, PSI-2 Berlin, Nagdis, Pilot-PSI, and the future device Magnum-PSI along with selected results to illustrate their capabilities.