I am thinking of buying (or upgrading) my PC for an FPGA project. At the moment I am using a windows laptop for synthesis and P&R runs. I use a Linux PC for simulation runs. Ideally I would like to move everything onto a linux PC. I have not got to the stage of debugging the design. I would say I need a PC with lots of physical memory. A parallel port (probably via a PCI interface) parallel cable III (probably bought with a starter kit) Any other interface ports that I need? At a pinch I can probably use wine. I have no plans to use EDK. If there is anything that I have missed then please tell me. I'd hate to buy something and then find out "oh you need ..." . Thanks very much Andy.
PC requirements for ISE webpack
Started by ●January 30, 2008
Reply by ●January 30, 20082008-01-30
On 30 Jan, 20:58, Andy Botterill <a...@plymouth2.demon.co.uk> wrote:> I am thinking of buying (or upgrading) my PC for an FPGA project. > > At the moment I am using a windows laptop for synthesis and P&R runs. I > use a Linux PC for simulation runs. > > Ideally I would like to move everything onto a linux PC. I have not got > to the stage of debugging the design. > > I would say I need a PC with lots of physical memory. > A parallel port (probably via a PCI interface) > parallel cable III (probably bought with a starter kit) > > Any other interface ports that I need? > > At a pinch I can probably use wine. > > I have no plans to use EDK. > > If there is anything that I have missed then please tell me. I'd hate to > buy something and then find out "oh you need ..." .The Synthesis/Place/Route process seem to be equivalent to traversing a *large* node tree repeatedly which will trash any cache. Thus you should look for something that have a really fast memory bus and a really large L2 cache >1MB primarly. Going from 32bit to 64bit seem to increase performance by 20% according to another poster. (is different ISE versions faster/slower?). Intel Core2 seems to be 1,69 times faster than AMD64 X2. I assume this is related to L2 cache and memory *bus* speed. http://www.polybus.com/linux_hardware/index.htm Under linux you can figure out how much memory you really need by checking how much swap that is used. You can get faster (3x?) programming via USB rather than PCI-parallell port. However the last alternative "just works". Check linux drivers! Xilinx Platform USB can be used via a free program that will reflash the cpld (?). The best resource for fpga-jtag-linux is to search forums and the web. Don't count at all on vendors. http://www.xilinx.com/support/programr/jtag_cable.pdf http://www.science-and-technology.nl/research/jolt/ http://sourceforge.net/ + xc3sprog http://www.rmdir.de/~michael/xilinx/ http://inisyn.org/src/xup/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/xilprg http://www.c3a.de/wiki/index.php/JTAG_Finder It's not problem to run ISE with linux-api module (linux.ko) under FreeBSD btw.
Reply by ●January 30, 20082008-01-30
posedge52@yahoo.com wrote: ...> It's not problem to run ISE with linux-api module (linux.ko) under > FreeBSD btw.If you run on anything non-Redhat/Windows, be prepared to get the answer "Not a supported platform" all the time :-( for every problem you report/webcase you open, as unrelated to any distribution the problem can be. It takes persistance to get Xilinx first level support to realize the problem... -- Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt --------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------
Reply by ●January 30, 20082008-01-30
On 31 Jan, 00:01, Uwe Bonnes <b...@hertz.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote:> posedg...@yahoo.com wrote: > > > It's not problem to run ISE with linux-api module (linux.ko) under FreeBSD btw. > > If you run on anything non-Redhat/Windows, be prepared to get the answer > "Not a supported platform" all the time :-( > for every problem you report/webcase you open, as unrelated to any > distribution the problem can be. It takes persistance to get Xilinx > first level support to realize the problem...So far I have solved problems without help from Xilinx. And should it be needed one can always employ helpdesk engineering :)
Reply by ●January 31, 20082008-01-31
posedge52@yahoo.com wrote:> On 30 Jan, 20:58, Andy Botterill <a...@plymouth2.demon.co.uk> wrote:> > The Synthesis/Place/Route process seem to be equivalent to traversing > a *large* node tree repeatedly which will trash any cache. Thus you > should look for something that have a really fast memory bus and a > really large L2 cache >1MB primarly. Going from 32bit to 64bit seem to > increase performance by 20% according to another poster. (is different > ISE versions faster/slower?). > Intel Core2 seems to be 1,69 times faster than AMD64 X2. I assume this > is related to L2 cache and memory *bus* speed. > http://www.polybus.com/linux_hardware/index.htmNew motherboard with more L2 cache great.> > Under linux you can figure out how much memory you really need by > checking how much swap that is used.My Linux system has twice the memory of my windows system. Since I'm buying a new motherboard I'll take the opportunity to get more memory.> > You can get faster (3x?) programming via USB rather than PCI-parallell > port. However the last alternative "just works". Check linux drivers! > Xilinx Platform USB can be used via a free program that will reflash > the cpld (?).An extra USB port. I know I need some more. Added to the shopping list :-) .> The best resource for fpga-jtag-linux is to search forums and the web. > Don't count at all on vendors. > http://www.xilinx.com/support/programr/jtag_cable.pdf > http://www.science-and-technology.nl/research/jolt/ > http://sourceforge.net/ + xc3sprog > http://www.rmdir.de/~michael/xilinx/ > http://inisyn.org/src/xup/ > http://sourceforge.net/projects/xilprg > http://www.c3a.de/wiki/index.php/JTAG_Finder > > It's not problem to run ISE with linux-api module (linux.ko) under > FreeBSD btw.Will that work under fedora? Full GUI usage under Fedora would be really good. The ability to do synthesis and simulation on the same system would be great. Thanks Andy
Reply by ●January 31, 20082008-01-31
posedge52@yahoo.com wrote:> On 31 Jan, 00:01, Uwe Bonnes <b...@hertz.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> > wrote: > >>posedg...@yahoo.com wrote: >> >> >>>It's not problem to run ISE with linux-api module (linux.ko) under FreeBSD btw. >> >>If you run on anything non-Redhat/Windows, be prepared to get the answer >>"Not a supported platform" all the time :-(Sounds like a default response. So far I haven't had any ISE issues that I can't fix by creating a new project and putting the original source. As to my verilog and design that's my own fault. I am definitely still learning. Thanks Andy
Reply by ●January 31, 20082008-01-31
"Uwe Bonnes" <bon@hertz.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote in message news:fnqvks$2gi$1@lnx107.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de...> posedge52@yahoo.com wrote: > ... >> It's not problem to run ISE with linux-api module (linux.ko) under >> FreeBSD btw. > > If you run on anything non-Redhat/Windows, be prepared to get the answer > "Not a supported platform" all the time :-(Unfortunately that seem to apply to most EDA tools. I would recommend to use one of the Redhat clones like CentOS/WhiteBox/StarCom assuming of course you can't afford to buy a Redhat EL license. Hans www.ht-lab.com> for every problem you report/webcase you open, as unrelated to any > distribution the problem can be. It takes persistance to get Xilinx > first level support to realize the problem... > > > -- > Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de > > Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt > --------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------
Reply by ●January 31, 20082008-01-31
On 31 Jan, 09:41, "HT-Lab" <han...@ht-lab.com> wrote:> "Uwe Bonnes" <b...@hertz.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote in message > news:fnqvks$2gi$1@lnx107.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de... > > posedg...@yahoo.com wrote: > > ... > >> It's not problem to run ISE with linux-api module (linux.ko) under > >> FreeBSD btw. > > > If you run on anything non-Redhat/Windows, be prepared to get the answer > > "Not a supported platform" all the time :-( > > Unfortunately that seem to apply to most EDA tools. I would recommend to use > one of the Redhat clones like CentOS/WhiteBox/StarCom assuming of course you > can't afford to buy a Redhat EL license.Maybe the term 'ISE' was a bit misleading. The whole toolchain is possible to run under FreeBSD with linux.ko. Third party download tools eliminates the while USB-oh-so-secret-protocol-mess. Besides I have an idea for jtag download tool which will likely be more smooth in handling. And I rather put my money on that than a neverending circus of driver mess. A tip is to run ISE with Xnest as the display, which seem to eliminate some crashes related with X11 refresh. I would not likely select RedHat anyway disregarding any monetary issues by the following reasons: * Network services enabled by default opens up for all kinds of security issues. * Library incompabilities causes moment 22. * Inmature code inclusion. * inconsistent filesystem layout. * Commercial tie-in, the setup is leaned towards that you must be dependent on RH. (Many other distributions don't have these issues)
Reply by ●January 31, 20082008-01-31
posedge52@yahoo.com wrote:> On 31 Jan, 00:01, Uwe Bonnes <b...@hertz.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> > wrote: > > If you run on anything non-Redhat/Windows, be prepared to get the answer > > "Not a supported platform" all the time :-( > > for every problem you report/webcase you open, as unrelated to any > > distribution the problem can be. It takes persistance to get Xilinx > > first level support to realize the problem...> So far I have solved problems without help from Xilinx. And should it > be needed one can always employ helpdesk engineering :)Beside the silly use of WinDriver, I also have no real problems when running on Linux/Suse. And with Micheals work http://www.rmdir.de/~michael/xilinx there is no more need for WinDriver to run Impact. -- Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt --------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------
Reply by ●January 31, 20082008-01-31
posedge52@yahoo.com wrote:> On 31 Jan, 00:01, Uwe Bonnes <b...@hertz.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de> > wrote: > > If you run on anything non-Redhat/Windows, be prepared to get the answer > > "Not a supported platform" all the time :-( > > for every problem you report/webcase you open, as unrelated to any > > distribution the problem can be. It takes persistance to get Xilinx > > first level support to realize the problem...> So far I have solved problems without help from Xilinx. And should it > be needed one can always employ helpdesk engineering :)Beside the silly use of WinDriver, I also have no real problems when running on Linux/Suse. And with Michaels work http://www.rmdir.de/~michael/xilinx there is no more need for WinDriver to run Impact. -- Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt --------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------
