Brian Drummond wrote:

> The "libusb" driver from rmdir.de works well for me under Linux (OpenSuse 11)
> natively (no Windows required) with Parallel Cable IV. Works fine with both
> Impact and Chipscope.
> 
> I also tried the Xilinx recommended "libusb" which apparently will work with
> their USB programming cables, but doesn't support the parallel cables.
I have installed Ise WebPack 10.1 on a 32-bit Linux system, and the 
driver they supply with the package does support the Parallel Cable III.

They have a restriction that only licensed versions of Ise can be used 
on 64-bit Linux systems, unless you know how to hack some libraries.

Jon

Thorsten Kiefer <toki78@gmx.net> wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm using the Xilinx Webpack 11.1, the Spartan3 StarterKit, and the
> Digilent USB/JTAG cable.
> I find ISE 11.1 too slow under Windows, so I want to use it with Linux.
> My question is : is it possible to program the FPGA under Linux ?
> Xilprg is too old. Export from digilent is discontinued and not available 
> for Linux.
> Are there any alternatives ?

Did you try xc3sprog from sourceforge (the SVN version)?

-- 
Uwe Bonnes                bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik  Schlossgartenstrasse 9  64289 Darmstadt
--------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------

On Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:07:35 -0500, Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu> wrote:

>Frank Buss wrote:
>> Antti.Lukats@googlemail.com wrote:
>> 
>>> Option 1:
>>> Get a PC with preinstalled WinXP/Vista and forget the attempts to use
>>> FPGA tools under linux
>>> This option saves lots of frustration and is worth the money spent
>> 
>> I use Windows, too, but maybe a VMWare, or with another virtualization
>> software, you don't need at least an extra PC (I'm using this on my desktop
>> PC to run Debian Linux in VMWare, which works fine). Or install Linux and
>> Windows on one PC with a bootmanager like Grub (this is my Laptop setup),
>> but Murphy's Law says, that you just need some program for Linux fast (e.g.
>> phone call from a customer and you have to check something) when Windows is
>> booted and vice versa :-)
>> 
>Windows 2K Pro running under VMWare works perfectly to program Xilinx 
>CPLDs with the Parallel Cable III.  I'm sure it would work fine for 
>downloading FPGAs, also.  (I just prefer EPROMS for that, as there are 
>less cables, par ports, etc. required that way.  If you are using 
>ChipScope, then you need it hooked up anyway.

The "libusb" driver from rmdir.de works well for me under Linux (OpenSuse 11)
natively (no Windows required) with Parallel Cable IV. Works fine with both
Impact and Chipscope.

I also tried the Xilinx recommended "libusb" which apparently will work with
their USB programming cables, but doesn't support the parallel cables.

(the Xilinx supplied Windriver for the same purpose doesn't build with recent
kernels!)

- Brian

Torfinn Ingolfsen <tingo@start.no> writes:

> But why (oh why) is the free IDE only for Windows?

In the Altera case I assume it's because they have to pay a per seat
licenses for their Linux window library (MainWin). 

> Interesting. Is this by any chance freely available / open source?

No, at least not at the moment. 

Petter
-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

Frank Buss wrote:
> Antti.Lukats@googlemail.com wrote:
> 
>> Option 1:
>> Get a PC with preinstalled WinXP/Vista and forget the attempts to use
>> FPGA tools under linux
>> This option saves lots of frustration and is worth the money spent
> 
> I use Windows, too, but maybe a VMWare, or with another virtualization
> software, you don't need at least an extra PC (I'm using this on my desktop
> PC to run Debian Linux in VMWare, which works fine). Or install Linux and
> Windows on one PC with a bootmanager like Grub (this is my Laptop setup),
> but Murphy's Law says, that you just need some program for Linux fast (e.g.
> phone call from a customer and you have to check something) when Windows is
> booted and vice versa :-)
> 
Windows 2K Pro running under VMWare works perfectly to program Xilinx 
CPLDs with the Parallel Cable III.  I'm sure it would work fine for 
downloading FPGAs, also.  (I just prefer EPROMS for that, as there are 
less cables, par ports, etc. required that way.  If you are using 
ChipScope, then you need it hooked up anyway.

Jon

Thorsten Kiefer wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm using the Xilinx Webpack 11.1, the Spartan3 StarterKit, and the Digilent 
> USB/JTAG cable.
> I find ISE 11.1 too slow under Windows, so I want to use it with Linux.
> My question is : is it possible to program the FPGA under Linux ?
> Xilprg is too old. Export from digilent is discontinued and not available 
> for Linux.
> Are there any alternatives ?
I am partially moved over to Linux, and have both Windows and Linux Ise 
at the same time.  What I am doing though, for Spartan 2E right now is 
programming SST serial flash memories with test configurations and then 
loading the FPGA from there.  I need some logic on my board with the 
Spartan 2E, but Spartan 3 is supposed to be able to directly load from 
the SST memories.

So, I built a simple parallel port programmer for the SST parts.  It is 
a simple serial device, you load a 16-bit command word to erase, program 
or read back.  The programmer has a 3.3 V power supply and a single CMOS 
chip as a level translator.  I could probably let you have the c code 
for writing MCS files to the SST chip.  It takes about 45 seconds to 
program the 1 mbit part.

Jon

Petter Gustad wrote:
> Altera has pretty good Linux support. I've been using Quartus under
> Linux&#4294967295; for a couple years including JTAG programming, signaltap
> debugging and NIOS II IDE debugging without any problems. I've also
> used head-less Linux boxes as JTAG servers with the Altera programming
> software.

But why (oh why) is the free IDE only for Windows?
It makes no sense to buy a (relatively) cheap development board i order 
to learn about FPGAs, only to have to shell out a major amount of money 
for a Linux IDE. And to use the Windows IED I'll have to invest in a 
Windows licence (and a machine capabe of running WinXP at least). Both 
ways I lose.

> As for both Altera and Xilinx I've also used my own custom programmer
> which is Ethernet attached. I simply send my programming file to the
> programmer using tftp which is available for most OSes. Unfortunately,
> I don't have any documentation on the signaltap and chipscope
> protocols in order to support those :-(

Interesting. Is this by any chance freely available / open source?

-- 
Torfinn Ingolfsen

Thorsten Kiefer <toki78@gmx.net> writes:

> What FPGA vendor and development board would you suggest for
> development on Linux ?

Altera has pretty good Linux support. I've been using Quartus under
Linux&#4294967295; for a couple years including JTAG programming, signaltap
debugging and NIOS II IDE debugging without any problems. I've also
used head-less Linux boxes as JTAG servers with the Altera programming
software.

As for both Altera and Xilinx I've also used my own custom programmer
which is Ethernet attached. I simply send my programming file to the
programmer using tftp which is available for most OSes. Unfortunately,
I don't have any documentation on the signaltap and chipscope
protocols in order to support those :-(

Petter

&#4294967295;) Mostly Gentoo Linux even though it's not a supported distribution.
I've experienced some problems with the c-shell based Altera scripts
on unsupported Linux platforms.

-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

On Aug 30, 8:27=A0pm, Thorsten Kiefer <tok...@gmx.net> wrote:
> Frank Buss wrote:
> > Antti.Luk...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> >> Option 1:
> >> Get a PC with preinstalled WinXP/Vista and forget the attempts to use
> >> FPGA tools under linux
> >> This option saves lots of frustration and is worth the money spent
>
> > I use Windows, too, but maybe a VMWare, or with another virtualization
> > software, you don't need at least an extra PC (I'm using this on my
> > desktop PC to run Debian Linux in VMWare, which works fine). Or install
> > Linux and Windows on one PC with a bootmanager like Grub (this is my
> > Laptop setup), but Murphy's Law says, that you just need some program f=
or
> > Linux fast (e.g. phone call from a customer and you have to check
> > something) when Windows is booted and vice versa :-)
>
> Xilinx ISE is very slow on Windows and much faster on Linux.
> So once I used a Linux box to code and a win box for uploading
> the mcs file. According to your advise I will try running
> the Digilent ExPort tool on Win in VirtualBox.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

I did NOT advise using win in virtual box, I meant REAL PC
think i did even say need buy PC with pre installed winXP
this mean real machine not win in VM

there is no gurantee digilent export will work in virual win box

Antti

On Aug 30, 11:16=A0pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:
> "Antti.Luk...@googlemail.com" <antti.luk...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> >On Aug 30, 4:47=3DA0pm, Thorsten Kiefer <tok...@gmx.net> wrote:
> >> Antti.Luk...@googlemail.com wrote:
> >> > On Aug 28, 12:51 am, Thorsten Kiefer <tok...@gmx.net> wrote:
> >> >> Hi,
> >> >> I'm using the Xilinx Webpack 11.1, the Spartan3 StarterKit, and the
> >> >> Digilent USB/JTAG cable.
> >> >> I find ISE 11.1 too slow under Windows, so I want to use it with Li=
nux=3D
> >.
> >I know.
>
> >But if you want the ALL BUNDLE, meaning development
> >tools and utilities for 5 different FPGA vendors, + special
> >tools for 3rd parties, then you just have to have one win
> >box no matter how hard you may hate that solution.
>
> Any experience using OpenOCD combined with a generic JTAG dongle (can
> be as simple as a parallel port wiggler) to program xsv (or whatever
> these pre-cooked jtag files are called) into the FPGA?
>
> --
> Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
> indicates you are not using the right tools...
> =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0"If it doesn't fit, use a bigg=
er hammer!"
> --------------------------------------------------------------

you dont rean the brain, i think i have written that using svf files
with jtag player is not a problem at all, i used amontec jtagkey
but any supported hw would do.hm i guess i used openocd
as player, think i did
--

Thorsten: i said win box (real PC), not VM virtual windows
under linux - different things, it is safe to run linux in win VM,
but not the otherway around as long as it goes the usb drivers
(well maybe linux usb want work in win VM either, but there
is no need for it also).

its worth a try of course as last hope, but it is not guaranteed
for success, sorry the linux way is die hard way, if you want
it it all yours..

I go the hard way too, when the task calls for it, but messing
around with linux/jtag/usb isnt for me, it doesnt pay

well it may one day develop some linux stuff that works,
but for my everyday work i use things that are known to work

Antti