Xilinx tools on Linux

Uwe Bonnes <bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> writes:
> They should talk to Codeweavers. I guess for the money Xilinx spends
> on WindU, they could have Codeweavers weed out a lot of Problems in
> Wine (and perhaps some in the Xilinx code) so that ISE would run
> flawless in Wine. No more need for a WindU license and a single source
> tree...

But running ISE in Wine is about 10x slower than running the Linux version
with Wind/U.  It's actually slower than running the Windows version under
VMware, which surprised me.

Apparently the Wind/U royalties aren't that big a problem, since they're
giving out Webpack for Linux now.  I'd much rather have Wind/U than use
Wine (either normally or with Wine code linked into ISE).

Eric

In article <d412dg$2kr$1@lnx107.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>,
Uwe Bonnes  <bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote:
>Phil Tomson <ptkwt@aracnet.com> wrote:
>
>> Isn't it interesting how fast some Xilinx guys (FAEs?) jumped on the 
>> other thread about Spartan 3E being slower than Spartan 3, but we've 
>> heard nary a peep out of them about this thread?
>
>No theory of conspiration, please,

No conspiracy theories here...

>
>Those guys (always helpfull and responsive) come from different areas then
>the guys responsible  for programming...

Ah,  makes sense.

I do hope Xilinx is listening.  It would be great to have a native Linux 
ISE 7.x in the future that works well on the platform and we're just 
trying to help them get there.

Phil

In article <qhis2j7smz.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
Eric Smith  <eric@brouhaha.com> wrote:
>Uwe Bonnes <bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> writes:
>> They should talk to Codeweavers. I guess for the money Xilinx spends
>> on WindU, they could have Codeweavers weed out a lot of Problems in
>> Wine (and perhaps some in the Xilinx code) so that ISE would run
>> flawless in Wine. No more need for a WindU license and a single source
>> tree...
>
>But running ISE in Wine is about 10x slower than running the Linux version
>with Wind/U.  It's actually slower than running the Windows version under
>VMware, which surprised me.

I haven't tried it under Wine yet.  However, I can tell you that the 
WindU version is unusable for me as it takes several _minutes_ to start 
up and then it takes minutes to respond to mouse clicks on various GUI 
elements. I have no idea why it would be that slow - it seems rather 
strange.  I am not running anything like seti, either. My machine is a 
bit dated (800MHz Duron) but it shouldn't be _that_ bad.  I suspect that 
running the windows version under Wine should be faster.

>
>Apparently the Wind/U royalties aren't that big a problem, since they're
>giving out Webpack for Linux now.  I'd much rather have Wind/U than use
>Wine (either normally or with Wine code linked into ISE).

But wasn't there some indication that they were moving to a native 
toolkit?

Phil

Eric Smith <eric@brouhaha.com> wrote:
> Uwe Bonnes <bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> writes:
> > They should talk to Codeweavers. I guess for the money Xilinx spends
> > on WindU, they could have Codeweavers weed out a lot of Problems in
> > Wine (and perhaps some in the Xilinx code) so that ISE would run
> > flawless in Wine. No more need for a WindU license and a single source
> > tree...

> But running ISE in Wine is about 10x slower than running the Linux version
> with Wind/U.  It's actually slower than running the Windows version under
> VMware, which surprised me.

You probably run a kernel before 2.6.10. A fix for the communication between
the GUI and the worker programms was introduced with 2.6.10.

> Apparently the Wind/U royalties aren't that big a problem, since they're
> giving out Webpack for Linux now.  I'd much rather have Wind/U than use
> Wine (either normally or with Wine code linked into ISE).

And Wind/U is the only X Program  that doesn't like my DISPLAY variable
":0.0" and insists on ":0"...

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

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

Phil Tomson <ptkwt@aracnet.com> wrote:

> I haven't tried it under Wine yet.  However, I can tell you that the 
> WindU version is unusable for me as it takes several _minutes_ to start 
> up and then it takes minutes to respond to mouse clicks on various GUI 
> elements. I have no idea why it would be that slow - it seems rather 
> strange.  I am not running anything like seti, either. My machine is a 
> bit dated (800MHz Duron) but it shouldn't be _that_ bad.  I suspect that 
> running the windows version under Wine should be faster.

Probably  there is someting wrong with your setup. One minute seems much too 
long.

> >
> >Apparently the Wind/U royalties aren't that big a problem, since they're
> >giving out Webpack for Linux now.  I'd much rather have Wind/U than use
> >Wine (either normally or with Wine code linked into ISE).

> But wasn't there some indication that they were moving to a native 
> toolkit?

There were rumors about a QT port and some people (like me) spread them. No
Xilinx insider objected however....

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

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

Phil Tomson wrote:
> But wasn't there some indication that they were moving to a native 
> toolkit?

Uwe Bonnes wrote:
> There were rumors about a QT port and some people (like me) spread them.

AFAIK, all that anyone from Xilinx has said is that they are "moving away
from a GUI toolkit that is encumbered with a per-seat license fee."
(Neil Glenn Jacobson, on 18-Aug-2004):
    http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.arch.fpga/msg/2d2521a183d89fea

That statement can be interpreted several ways.  Not necessarily as a
"native" toolkit, though that would seem to make sense.

Possibly they are moving to a different toolkit, but haven't yet
released a version with the new toolkit, and decided to pay the
royalties on Linux Webpack downloads until that release.

Or possibly they've negotiated a new license for Wind/U that lets them
offer WebPack with a reduced (or zero) royalty, which is in the vendor's
interest since they will keep getting royalties on ISE.

Note that Qt still would have per-seat license fees, so I don't think
it's even in the running.  There's a GPL license for Qt as well, but
Xilinx presumably doesn't want to GPL their tools.

> No Xilinx insider objected however....

But surely you don't expect to preannounce such things?

Eric

Uwe Bonnes <bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> writes:
> And Wind/U is the only X Program  that doesn't like my DISPLAY variable
> ":0.0" and insists on ":0"...

That's silly, but it doesn't seem like a big problem in practice.  I have
a simple wrapper script I use for invoking all the Xilinx tools, which sets
up environment variables and such.  It just sets DISPLAY to :0, and
everything works fine.

Eric

Uwe Bonnes wrote:
> Eric Smith <eric@brouhaha.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>But running ISE in Wine is about 10x slower than running the Linux version
>>with Wind/U.  It's actually slower than running the Windows version under
>>VMware, which surprised me.
> 
> 
> You probably run a kernel before 2.6.10. A fix for the communication between
> the GUI and the worker programms was introduced with 2.6.10.
> 

And the other thing to make sure of is that you are using a Windows 
native version of msvcrt.dll. That can make a dramatic difference on ISE.

Rudolf Usselmann wrote:
> 
> yes, it is possible to replace the GUI with a script. At least
> for ISE. I have not been able to figure out hot to do the same
> for EDK (yet).
> 

Assuming you are on Linux... (though presumably this should also work on 
Windows)

The EDK project is run by a makefile, named system.make. So you can can 
build the project by typing commands like:
make -f system.make netlist
which builds the bitfile from HDL code, and
make -f system.make program
which compiles C code and inserts it into the bitfile. Those are about 
the only two EDK commands I use. I never use the EDK GUI. A list of 
commands is available with:
make -f system.make
Actually, I create a symbolic link
ln -s system.make makefile
which means I don't need to type out the "-f system.make" stuff.

Of course, that doesn't get you the project in the first place. In 
general, I take an existing project that is similar to what I want, copy 
it over, and start modifying.

In article <d418u5$5c9$1@lnx107.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>,
Uwe Bonnes  <bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote:
>Eric Smith <eric@brouhaha.com> wrote:
>> Uwe Bonnes <bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> writes:
>> > They should talk to Codeweavers. I guess for the money Xilinx spends
>> > on WindU, they could have Codeweavers weed out a lot of Problems in
>> > Wine (and perhaps some in the Xilinx code) so that ISE would run
>> > flawless in Wine. No more need for a WindU license and a single source
>> > tree...
>
>> But running ISE in Wine is about 10x slower than running the Linux version
>> with Wind/U.  It's actually slower than running the Windows version under
>> VMware, which surprised me.
>
>You probably run a kernel before 2.6.10. A fix for the communication between
>the GUI and the worker programms was introduced with 2.6.10.

This is good to know and it seems like a reasonable explanation...  Turns 
out I'm running 2.6.3.  I'll try rebooting with my old 2.4.something 
kernel when I get a chance.

>
>> Apparently the Wind/U royalties aren't that big a problem, since they're
>> giving out Webpack for Linux now.  I'd much rather have Wind/U than use
>> Wine (either normally or with Wine code linked into ISE).
>
>And Wind/U is the only X Program  that doesn't like my DISPLAY variable
>":0.0" and insists on ":0"...

I think that part was OK in my case.

Phil