Another Xilinx webpack download rant

Hello
I've been trying to download these 2.9GB for 3 days with numerous
retries (thanks to the download manager, the 'resume' resulted in a
restart from 0) and when I finally managed to get the full file it was
corrupted.
Now I want to order a DVD and when I click on the appropriate link on
the web site I get redirected to the home page.

Who at Xilinx wants to prevent people from using their products ?

Nico

On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 01:08:51 -0700 (PDT), Nicolas Matringe <nic_o_mat@msn.com> wrote:

>Hello
>I've been trying to download these 2.9GB for 3 days with numerous
>retries (thanks to the download manager, the 'resume' resulted in a
>restart from 0) and when I finally managed to get the full file it was
>corrupted.
>Now I want to order a DVD and when I click on the appropriate link on
>the web site I get redirected to the home page.
>
>Who at Xilinx wants to prevent people from using their products ?

Maybe the same people that >1 year leadtimes are acceptable. 

I cant understand what was wrong with the old way of doing things i.e. just
use your own download manager to get a zip file. Since they introduced the
new method I have never managed to get it to work. Every time I pause the
download it throws up an error when I try to resume it.

Jon	   
					
---------------------------------------		
Posted through http://www.FPGARelated.com

>On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 01:08:51 -0700 (PDT), Nicolas Matringe
<nic_o_mat@msn.com> wrote:
>
>>Hello
>>I've been trying to download these 2.9GB for 3 days with numerous
>>retries (thanks to the download manager, the 'resume' resulted in a
>>restart from 0) and when I finally managed to get the full file it was
>>corrupted.
>>Now I want to order a DVD and when I click on the appropriate link on
>>the web site I get redirected to the home page.
>>
>>Who at Xilinx wants to prevent people from using their products ?
>
>Maybe the same people that >1 year leadtimes are acceptable. 
>

It sounds like, for serious product developers, that using Xilinx's latest
and greatest (devices and software) is not a great idea.  The options are
either stick with the older devices and software (11.3 been working ok for
me).  Or move to another FPGA manufacture that seems to be more consistent.
 

Others have posted that Lattice seems to deliver better results but is a
(perceived) generation behind.  I say perceived because if you can't get
the latest and greatest parts from X are they really ahead?  Also, since X
dropped NuHo it has been harder for me to get parts.  NuHo distributes
Lattice so we are strongly considering Lattice for our next design.

There must be something to the quick / unstable latest and greatest
releases.  Because we all keep using their parts and some how putting up
with the issues.  

Other than ISE we haven't had any huge issues with Xilinx (until they
dropped NuHo).  We don't upgrade our ISE to the latest, we try desperately
not to get the latest ISE.  

Many have been interested in getting the latest X 7 series but then the
frustration mounted because no parts are actually available.  I think the
car companies do the same thing?  Generating hype, if it is good or bad
hype?

If you are using an older device (non-spartan6) you might want to try
ISE10.x version (can it still be downloaded?).

chris	   
					
---------------------------------------		
Posted through http://www.FPGARelated.com

On Jul 15, 1:08=A0am, Nicolas Matringe <nic_o_...@msn.com> wrote:
> Hello
> I've been trying to download these 2.9GB for 3 days with numerous
> retries (thanks to the download manager, the 'resume' resulted in a
> restart from 0) and when I finally managed to get the full file it was
> corrupted.


I had the same problem.  I can't remember which browser wasn't working
(IExplorer or FireFox).....  But when I switched to the other browser,
the download worked fine with the download manager.


Rich

On 7/15/2010 1:08 AM, Nicolas Matringe wrote:
> Hello
> I've been trying to download these 2.9GB for 3 days with numerous
> retries (thanks to the download manager, the 'resume' resulted in a
> restart from 0) and when I finally managed to get the full file it was
> corrupted.
> Now I want to order a DVD and when I click on the appropriate link on
> the web site I get redirected to the home page.
>
> Who at Xilinx wants to prevent people from using their products ?
>
> Nico

Yeah, but at least it's down from 5.5GB to 3GB.  That's nearly 40% fewer 
places for your download to break.  More to the point, that much smaller 
of a package at least implies that Xilinx is finally starting to do some 
much needed housecleaning in their software.  Maybe by 13 it'll start 
working the way it's supposed to.

-- 
Rob Gaddi, Highland Technology
Email address is currently out of order

"maxascent" <maxascent@n_o_s_p_a_m.n_o_s_p_a_m.yahoo.co.uk> writes:

> I cant understand what was wrong with the old way of doing things i.e. just
> use your own download manager to get a zip file.

Likewise. Well, I once read some comments from some Linux distributor
which indicated almost no one uses download managers that can resume,
instead most people download files multiple times until they finally
succeed. So it makes some sense to try to push people into using a
download manager, even if it's primitive and easily avoided. But then
you have no chance to resume. And to think resuming downloads was
everyday stuff in the 1990's already...

> Since they introduced the new method I have never managed to get it
> to work. Every time I pause the download it throws up an error when
> I try to resume it.

It has often worked for me, if I deliberately stop a download to
resume later. But if something actually goes wrong, then resuming is
unlikely to work...

Altera at least does actually provide a direct link to the file if the
download manager doesn't start. Doesn't help with Xilinx, though.

On 15 juil, 17:21, "cfelton"
<cfelton@n_o_s_p_a_m.n_o_s_p_a_m.ieee.org> wrote:
> >On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 01:08:51 -0700 (PDT), Nicolas Matringe
> <nic_o_...@msn.com> wrote:
>
> >>Hello
> >>I've been trying to download these 2.9GB for 3 days with numerous
> >>retries (thanks to the download manager, the 'resume' resulted in a
> >>restart from 0) and when I finally managed to get the full file it was
> >>corrupted.
> >>Now I want to order a DVD and when I click on the appropriate link on
> >>the web site I get redirected to the home page.
>
> >>Who at Xilinx wants to prevent people from using their products ?
>
> >Maybe the same people that >1 year leadtimes are acceptable.
>
> It sounds like, for serious product developers, that using Xilinx's lates=
t
> and greatest (devices and software) is not a great idea. =A0The options a=
re
> either stick with the older devices and software (11.3 been working ok fo=
r
> me). =A0Or move to another FPGA manufacture that seems to be more consist=
ent.
[...]

Well since the intent of all this was to do a quick FPGA benchmark it
seems that Xilinx earned a VERY bad mark there.
Altera wasn't very good either but I managed to install the software
once I got it.
Lattice's software comes through a normal file transfer, it is
perfectly handled by FireFox (I stopped the download yesterday night
and just resumed it. I only hope that the file won't be corrupted)
Actel's software went fine

Are Austin and Peter still reading this newsgroup ? Can you do
something about it ? Please ?

Nico

On 15 juil, 10:08, Nicolas Matringe <nic_o_...@msn.com> wrote:
> Hello
> I've been trying to download these 2.9GB for 3 days with numerous
> retries (thanks to the download manager, the 'resume' resulted in a
> restart from 0) and when I finally managed to get the full file it was
> corrupted.

I finally managed to get the full file in running order after another
6 hours download, now I'm installing  it.

Nico

On Jul 15, 9:28=A0am, rich12345 <aiiad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 15, 1:08=A0am, Nicolas Matringe <nic_o_...@msn.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello
> > I've been trying to download these 2.9GB for 3 days with numerous
> > retries (thanks to the download manager, the 'resume' resulted in a
> > restart from 0) and when I finally managed to get the full file it was
> > corrupted.
>
> I had the same problem. =A0I can't remember which browser wasn't working
> (IExplorer or FireFox)..... =A0But when I switched to the other browser,
> the download worked fine with the download manager.
>
> Rich

I had similar results.  My thought was that it was a Java problem -
different browsers typically have different ways of dealing with
embedded Java.

RK.