> On Mon, 04 Apr 2005 19:48:58 +0100, Thomas Womack wrote:
>
>
>>Is there any way of using the Xilinx toolchain on a Mac?
>>
>>I have become spoiled by my Mac Mini, and unpacking my loud PC
>>just to run place-and-route seems inelegant.
>>
>>Tom
>
>
> Take your PC, put Linux on it, install the Linux Xilinx tools, put it in
> another room and then rlogin or ssh into it. The Mac will make a fine
> X server. You can do all of your work from the Mac while the PC is safely
> out of earshot.
Not if you want to run the EDK. On a Mac X display, drop-down menus
appear at screen co-ords (0,0), and the 1st option is unselectable. Oh,
and the EDK misbehaves when you get to the 'add peripherals' stage - you
can never get past that screen.
Running using VNC from the linux box to the mac is better, but you still
get lag and sometimes strange behaviour.
I've just bought a DVI KVM, so I can run the EDK on my Linux box with
the output going to my gorgeous mac monitor - it's the only solution I
can find that has no problems :-(
Oh, and a bog-standard 64-bit AMD box (2GHz) runs about 3x the speed of
a dual 2GHz G5 box when running iverilog, so it'll be a *lot* faster
than on a G4 Mac Mini. I love the form-factor of the mini, but a
computing powerhouse it most certainly ain't. I'd say the AMD box would
be ~10x the speed of the mini...
Simon.
Reply by Marc Randolph●April 7, 20052005-04-07
Karl wrote:
> Thomas Womack wrote:
>
> > >The cost could not be the issue if you start using Altera devices
> :-)
> >
> > This is probably both troll-bait and an FAQ, but what's the Altera
> > equivalent of something like the Xess $199 XC3S1000 or $349 Avnet
> > XC4VLX25? (that is, a cheap board with a chip on it as large as
> > the free tools support, and some quick-win peripherals)
>
> Funny how a $399 device ends up on a $349 board. (Source: Avnet's
Part
> Search) It might be better to look at device prices.
Howdy Karl,
Funny how you tried to take a pot shot rather than actually answering
his question. He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding a
comparable Altera based eval board.
As for that price: assuming for a second that the single piece price on
the website is even accurate, I am sure that Avnet doesn't just buy one
part at a time, from themselves no less, to build eval boards. Even
the 100 piece price ($313) that they list contains a huge amount of
Avnet markup. And that's even considering that ES (pre-production)
parts tend to cost more than production parts.
I'm sure it would be the same situation for Stratix II.
Marc
Reply by Karl●April 7, 20052005-04-07
Thomas Womack wrote:
> >The cost could not be the issue if you start using Altera devices
:-)
>
> This is probably both troll-bait and an FAQ, but what's the Altera
> equivalent of something like the Xess $199 XC3S1000 or $349 Avnet
> XC4VLX25? (that is, a cheap board with a chip on it as large as
> the free tools support, and some quick-win peripherals)
> Tom
Funny how a $399 device ends up on a $349 board. (Source: Avnet's Part
Search) It might be better to look at device prices.
Karl.
Reply by B. Joshua Rosen●April 6, 20052005-04-06
On Mon, 04 Apr 2005 19:48:58 +0100, Thomas Womack wrote:
> Is there any way of using the Xilinx toolchain on a Mac?
>
> I have become spoiled by my Mac Mini, and unpacking my loud PC
> just to run place-and-route seems inelegant.
>
> Tom
Take your PC, put Linux on it, install the Linux Xilinx tools, put it in
another room and then rlogin or ssh into it. The Mac will make a fine
X server. You can do all of your work from the Mac while the PC is safely
out of earshot.
Reply by Thomas Womack●April 6, 20052005-04-06
In article <1112717515.013523.275140@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
Karl <karl@chello.nl> wrote:
This is probably both troll-bait and an FAQ, but what's the Altera
equivalent of something like the Xess $199 XC3S1000 or $349 Avnet
XC4VLX25? (that is, a cheap board with a chip on it as large as
the free tools support, and some quick-win peripherals)
Counting LUTs, multipliers, memories and general performance claims,
the LX25 board is a remarkable capability for the price of three
weeks' rent.
Chip/Board cost/# LUTs/# flipflops/# multipliers
| # 512bit/# 4kbit/# 16kbit/# 512kbit
XC4VLX25 $349 21504 21504 48 | 0 0 72 0
XC3S1000 $199 15360 15360 24 | 0 0 24 0
EP1C12 $295 12060 12060 0 | 0 52 0 0
EP2S15 12480 12480 48 | 104 78 0 0
EP1S10 $395 10570 10570 24 | 94 60 0 1
Parallax do a $395 bare-bones board with an EP1S10, and there's the
Nios II Eval Board for $295 with Ethernet. I suppose the Stratix 2
series is new enough that it's unfair to expect cheap hobbyist boards
already, but Google isn't giving me any useful hit on +EP2S15 +board.
Tom
Reply by Ray Andraka●April 6, 20052005-04-06
Martin Thompson wrote:
>Ray Andraka <ray@andraka.com> writes:
>
>
>
>>Karl wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Here is a solution for your noise,
>>>
>>>http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=151&code=020
>>>
>>>The cost could not be the issue if you start using Altera devices :-)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>that doesn't address the disk drive noise. 15000 rpm SCSI drives are
>>pretty noisy.
>>
>>
>>
>
>Do you need a 15k rpm drive for this sort of work? If you're swapping
>you need more RAM, surely? The reading of files from the disk has not
>been a bottleneck in my experience, although I'm not targetting the
>very biggest devices out there...
>
>My Barracuda is almost silent, even in standard mountings - its the
>PSU fan that annoys me now!
>
>Cheers,
>Martin
>
>
>
I did when I bought that system. file I/O was a bottleneck at the time,
at least in simulation and PAR. I haven't evaluated it recently, but
will be later this year when I upgrade systems once again.
--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email ray@andraka.com
http://www.andraka.com
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Reply by ●April 6, 20052005-04-06
Ray Andraka <ray@andraka.com> writes:
> Karl wrote:
>
> >Here is a solution for your noise,
> >
> >http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=151&code=020
> >
> >The cost could not be the issue if you start using Altera devices :-)
> >
> >
> that doesn't address the disk drive noise. 15000 rpm SCSI drives are
> pretty noisy.
>
Do you need a 15k rpm drive for this sort of work? If you're swapping
you need more RAM, surely? The reading of files from the disk has not
been a bottleneck in my experience, although I'm not targetting the
very biggest devices out there...
My Barracuda is almost silent, even in standard mountings - its the
PSU fan that annoys me now!
Cheers,
Martin
--
martin.j.thompson@trw.com
TRW Conekt, Solihull, UK
http://www.trw.com/conekt
that doesn't address the disk drive noise. 15000 rpm SCSI drives are
pretty noisy.
--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email ray@andraka.com
http://www.andraka.com
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759
> Is there any way of using the Xilinx toolchain on a Mac?
>
> I have become spoiled by my Mac Mini, and unpacking my loud PC
> just to run place-and-route seems inelegant.
>
> Tom
Reply by Jim George●April 5, 20052005-04-05
Thomas Womack wrote:
> Is there any way of using the Xilinx toolchain on a Mac?
>
> I have become spoiled by my Mac Mini, and unpacking my loud PC
> just to run place-and-route seems inelegant.
>
> Tom
>
Try keeping your noisy PC elsewhere on a network and use Virtual Desktop
under Virtual PC (eek!!!)
-Jim