For reasons that are implicit in this finding, I suggest that if you
have a lot of locally developed software running under a Debian-like
distribution, that you buy a new computer dedicated to the Xilinx
toolflow (and any other RH-only supported software). Converting all
your existing code from Debian to RH will prove very labor intensive.
Years ago, Lincoln Greenhill tried to get our DSN radio astronomy
software running under RH. After a while he handed it off to his sys
admin. She never go it to work either. He bought a laptop dedicated to
observing with his backends in the DSN.
Regards
Tom
p.s. The TAMS SICL/VISA libraries will link fine into code running
under Debian but their associated executable utilities won't run.
Dan Werthimer wrote:
Our Berkeley CASPER group has switched operating systems
to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 for the CASPER tool flow.
We strongly recommend that you make make this change
if you are using Linux for version 10.x or 11.x of the Xilinx tools.
(Version 10.x or 11.x are required for Roach or Virtex 5/6).
Specific Recommendation
--------------------------
For anyone using or planning to install the 11.x SG/ISE/EDK toolflow
under linux,
we recommend you install on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL5)
distribution
or other Xilinx supported operating system.
There are several reasons we recommend this change:
1. RHEL5 is one of a small number of operating systems supported by
Xilinx.
Others are listed at http://www.xilinx.com/ise/ossupport/index.htm
2. If you want support from Xilinx, (eg: ask questions, etc)
Xilinx will insist you use one of these operation systems.
3. We've only been able to get the 11.4 toolflow to work on RHEL5.
11.3 has been mostly working under Debian/Ubuntu, but is no longer
available on the Xilinx website.
When generating with SG 11.4 under Debian/Ubuntu, there is a
MasterScriptxx.pl error that is unresolved.
4. We've encountered several subtle bugs that at first don't appear
related to choice of operating system,
but these bugs vanish when we run the tools under RHEL5.
For instance, Terry ran into a problem trying to ROM with 13
address bits using distributed memory;
this errors out under Debian/Ubuntu but compiles fine under RHEL5.
(this ROM is used in the FFT unscrambler for Npoints >=8K)
5. There could be unforeseeable consequences (more subtle bugs) using an
unsupported OS.
Best Wishes,
The Berkeley CASPER group
(Dan, Mark, Terry, Billy, Andrew, Suraj, Aaron, Marin, Matt, Mel and Don)
