Hello, On Sat, Jan 26, 2008 at 12:07:38PM -0600, Terry Hancock wrote: > Regarding jb's remark about zero-cost Linux versions of Xilinx software, > can anyone field this comment? > > http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/interview_a_graphic_view_of_the_open_hardware_movement_part_1_motivations#comments > > """ > Xilinx's tools *are* available for Linux for free > (http://www.xilinx.com/support/download/i92linwp.htm). Admittedly, the > same can't be said for Altera or Lattice. > """ > > I'm not sure if this is true, or if this isn't quite the right software > that is needed. OTOH, if it *is* then maybe this information is actually > useful to OGP?
The free tools only work with really tiny FPGAs, you can not select the bigger ones. Another point, though I do not know if this is maybe the "industry standard" is that I find the Xilinx tools, at least ISE/Xst just not suitable for serious use. It starts with small issues, like a missing ';' completely confusing there parser, making it give completely unrelated and nonsensical errors (something I haven't seen with software compiler since a decade), not even warning about things it simply cannot synthesize correctly while spewing out hundreds of warnings that are completely normal but can not be disabled (to my limited knowledge), and finally with complex code it needs frequent fine-tuning of options just to not make it simply crash. As a caveat: I am a software developer mainly, so this may be foremost a severe case of "every new user discovers a new class of bugs", nevertheless I can not help being convinced that Xilinx does not have a QA department (at least for the software side of things). Greetings, Reimar Döffinger _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
