why?

[kubik]

I' m a beginner in the FPGA world so i went to Xilinx and Altera site to
download the free design software for learning the basics.
I have saw that all the software downloadable is for windows.
Am i wrong or is really so?
If so for me is very strange or wrong. Because for a design kit that is
freely distributed what platform is better than a free Operating System?
Without entering in the discussion of the better quality of Linux.
I hope i'm wrong and that someone tell me that i can download these
software for my gentoo Linux distribution.

Thanks to all.

 

[John Williams]

kubik wrote:

I' m a beginner in the FPGA world so i went to Xilinx and Altera site to
download the free design software for learning the basics.
I have saw that all the software downloadable is for windows.
Am i wrong or is really so?

I don't know about the Altera tools, but my understanding is that Xilinx
webpack is not available for linux because they would have to pay
per-seat licensing to the developer of the cross-platform GUI that they
use. For giveaway software this clearly does not make sense.

I'm pretty sure people have got the free Xilinx tools (webpack) going
under wine - google will tell you. The only hitch there is the iMPACT
programming tool - I doubt it will work.

Cheers,

John

 

[Adam Megacz]

John Williams <jwilliams@itee.uq.edu.au> writes:

I don't know about the Altera tools, but my understanding is that
Xilinx webpack is not available for linux because they would have to
pay per-seat licensing to the developer of the cross-platform GUI that
they use.

Hey Xilinx, if you're listening, there are a *lot* of us who would
rejoice if you released the command line tools for Linux for free.
ESPECIALLY bitgen. We can do without the gui.

- a

 

[Symon]

Hey Xilinx,
There're are a *lot* of us who don't give a flying f which operating system
the tools run on. We'd rather you concentrated on improving the quality,
speed, accuracy and ease of use of the tools, rather than provide freebies
to students. ;-)
Cheers, Syms.
p.s. Anyone tried FPGA tools on XP SP2 yet?
"Adam Megacz" <megacz@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
news:x1pt5wu628.fsf_-_@nowhere.com...

John Williams <jwilliams@itee.uq.edu.au> writes:
I don't know about the Altera tools, but my understanding is that
Xilinx webpack is not available for linux because they would have to
pay per-seat licensing to the developer of the cross-platform GUI that
they use.

Hey Xilinx, if you're listening, there are a *lot* of us who would
rejoice if you released the command line tools for Linux for free.
ESPECIALLY bitgen. We can do without the gui.

- a

 

[Jim Wang]

I agree 100% -- while the GUI may *look* user-friendly, it hides what is
really happening while it "helps" you. With command-line, you are in
control.

Just give us the Linux command lines and a few sample Makefiles, forget the
GUI.

Jim

jimwang at
cal dot berkeley dot edu

--------------
Adam Megacz <megacz@cs.berkeley.edu> writes:

John Williams <jwilliams@itee.uq.edu.au> writes:
I don't know about the Altera tools, but my understanding is that
Xilinx webpack is not available for linux because they would have to
pay per-seat licensing to the developer of the cross-platform GUI that
they use.

Hey Xilinx, if you're listening, there are a *lot* of us who would
rejoice if you released the command line tools for Linux for free.
ESPECIALLY bitgen. We can do without the gui.

- a

 

[Hal Murray]

Just give us the Linux command lines and a few sample Makefiles, forget the
GUI.

That's not enough. You also need documentation on the
format of the files that you will need to edit by hand.

--
The suespammers.org mail server is located in California. So are all my
other mailboxes. Please do not send unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited
commercial e-mail to my suespammers.org address or any of my other addresses.
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.

 

[Duane Clark]

Hal Murray wrote:

Just give us the Linux command lines and a few sample Makefiles, forget the
GUI.


That's not enough. You also need documentation on the
format of the files that you will need to edit by hand.

The command line tools are already well documented, in the "Developement
System Reference Guide".
http://toolbox.xilinx.com/docsan/xilinx6/books/manuals.htm

And the Windows command line tools run quite well under Wine.

--
My real email is akamail.com@dclark (or something like that).

 

[Brian Dam Pedersen]

kubik wrote:

I' m a beginner in the FPGA world so i went to Xilinx and Altera site to
download the free design software for learning the basics.
I have saw that all the software downloadable is for windows.
Am i wrong or is really so?
If so for me is very strange or wrong. Because for a design kit that is
freely distributed what platform is better than a free Operating System?
Without entering in the discussion of the better quality of Linux.
I hope i'm wrong and that someone tell me that i can download these
software for my gentoo Linux distribution.

Thanks to all.

You can (at least) get the Xilinx webpack to run to a large extend. Look
at my directions at http://www.danbbs.dk/~kibria/xilinx.html for more
information.

-- Brian