Linux OS for FPGA worth

[Cecil Bayona]

I keep debating if I should start switching my PCs from Windows 10 to
Linux, several of my main PCs are on Win 10 Preview, and Microsoft made
it so you can't get off until the next non-preview release.

I play around with Lattice, and Xilinx FPGAs, I know Lattice has their
Diamond software available for Linux, and Xilinx has Vivado and it's
older software also available for Linux also, but I've read that it's
difficult to get them to work with Linux.

I use Mint Linux X64 a derivative of Ubuntu, so anyone out there has
used with with either of that software and how difficult was it to get
it working?

Thanks
--
Cecil - k5nwa

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 06/12/16 05:59, Cecil Bayona wrote:

I keep debating if I should start switching my PCs from Windows 10 to Linux,
several of my main PCs are on Win 10 Preview, and Microsoft made it so you can't
get off until the next non-preview release.

I play around with Lattice, and Xilinx FPGAs, I know Lattice has their Diamond
software available for Linux, and Xilinx has Vivado and it's older software also
available for Linux also, but I've read that it's difficult to get them to work
with Linux.

I use Mint Linux X64 a derivative of Ubuntu, so anyone out there has used with
with either of that software and how difficult was it to get it working?

Vivado on Xubuntu was trivial to install and get working.
Personally I would expect it to be more difficult to get
it working on Windows, but the manufacturer should have
sorted that out.

If in doubt, download it and install it in a virtual machine
image. There's even an argument that should be done for the
work environment, particularly if you might need to revisit
a design later.

 

[Cecil Bayona]

On 12/6/2016 2:56 AM, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 06/12/16 05:59, Cecil Bayona wrote:
I keep debating if I should start switching my PCs from Windows 10 to
Linux,
several of my main PCs are on Win 10 Preview, and Microsoft made it so
you can't
get off until the next non-preview release.

I play around with Lattice, and Xilinx FPGAs, I know Lattice has their
Diamond
software available for Linux, and Xilinx has Vivado and it's older
software also
available for Linux also, but I've read that it's difficult to get
them to work
with Linux.

I use Mint Linux X64 a derivative of Ubuntu, so anyone out there has
used with
with either of that software and how difficult was it to get it working?

Vivado on Xubuntu was trivial to install and get working.
Personally I would expect it to be more difficult to get
it working on Windows, but the manufacturer should have
sorted that out.

If in doubt, download it and install it in a virtual machine
image. There's even an argument that should be done for the
work environment, particularly if you might need to revisit
a design later.

Are you speaking of using a virtual PC for the development?

Under Windows 10 I also setup two Virtual CPUs running Win 7 i386 and
X64 because some of the software development tools would not work with
Windows 10 and some had issues with X64. I was a little slower but not
by much mostly because the Diamond software had less RAM under the 32
bit Virtual PC but it was good enough. An advantage was I could copy the
VM to any other PC I desired with little effort, and it was easy to keep
a backup of the entire system. I used vmWare and had little difficulty
having the VM talk to the FPGA board.

Right now I mostly use the Win 7 X64 VM most of the time with few issues
rather than use Windows 10 where I have more problems than Windows 7. I
supposed it might be better if I took one of my Window 10 CPUs, image
it, then restore Window 7 and run that natively but I like to give Linux
a shot at it since my machines that have Mint Linux just work and rarely
have any problems like Windows does.

--
Cecil - k5nwa

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 06/12/16 09:27, Cecil Bayona wrote:

On 12/6/2016 2:56 AM, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 06/12/16 05:59, Cecil Bayona wrote:
I keep debating if I should start switching my PCs from Windows 10 to
Linux,
several of my main PCs are on Win 10 Preview, and Microsoft made it so
you can't
get off until the next non-preview release.

I play around with Lattice, and Xilinx FPGAs, I know Lattice has their
Diamond
software available for Linux, and Xilinx has Vivado and it's older
software also
available for Linux also, but I've read that it's difficult to get
them to work
with Linux.

I use Mint Linux X64 a derivative of Ubuntu, so anyone out there has
used with
with either of that software and how difficult was it to get it working?

Vivado on Xubuntu was trivial to install and get working.
Personally I would expect it to be more difficult to get
it working on Windows, but the manufacturer should have
sorted that out.

If in doubt, download it and install it in a virtual machine
image. There's even an argument that should be done for the
work environment, particularly if you might need to revisit
a design later.


Are you speaking of using a virtual PC for the development?

That's the argument. There are pros and cons, of course.

Under Windows 10 I also setup two Virtual CPUs running Win 7 i386 and X64
because some of the software development tools would not work with Windows 10
and some had issues with X64. I was a little slower but not by much mostly
because the Diamond software had less RAM under the 32 bit Virtual PC but it was
good enough. An advantage was I could copy the VM to any other PC I desired with
little effort, and it was easy to keep a backup of the entire system. I used
vmWare and had little difficulty having the VM talk to the FPGA board.

Why am I not surprised! That illustrates a pro of the VM approach.

Right now I mostly use the Win 7 X64 VM most of the time with few issues rather
than use Windows 10 where I have more problems than Windows 7. I supposed it
might be better if I took one of my Window 10 CPUs, image it, then restore
Window 7 and run that natively but I like to give Linux a shot at it since my
machines that have Mint Linux just work and rarely have any problems like
Windows does.

On the rare occasions when I need Windows, I run XP in a VM.
I have both fully patched and from-the-CD images, and clone
them when experimenting.

I have no plans to buy Win10; I don't think I'm clever enough
to keep it secure.

 

[Jon Elson]

Cecil Bayona wrote:

I keep debating if I should start switching my PCs from Windows 10 to
Linux, several of my main PCs are on Win 10 Preview, and Microsoft made
it so you can't get off until the next non-preview release.

I play around with Lattice, and Xilinx FPGAs, I know Lattice has their
Diamond software available for Linux, and Xilinx has Vivado and it's
older software also available for Linux also, but I've read that it's
difficult to get them to work with Linux.

I use Mint Linux X64 a derivative of Ubuntu, so anyone out there has
used with with either of that software and how difficult was it to get
it working?

The oldest Xilinx Ise versions (10.1) won't run on a 64-bit Linux
environment without more tweaking than I'm willing to invest. The later
versions 13.x 14.x seem to work fine on a 64-bit Ubuntu 12 system.

The download pods can be tricky to get running right. Xilinx's own pod
seems to be easy, the Digilent pod took a bit more effort.

Jon