program spartan3 under linux

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.

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Petter Gustad wrote:
> Altera has pretty good Linux support. I've been using Quartus under
> Linux� 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 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

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

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
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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

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 ----------

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