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From: Tim Wescott on 21 Jul 2010 18:10
Is there any way to do this?

Is there any way to do this without standing on my head?

The last time I used ISE this was a Windows box. But I've evolved into
a Higher Life Form*, and now I don't do Windows if I can help it**. I'd
sidestep the whole problem by getting a USB JTAG cable and running
Windows in a VirtualBox -- but Xilinx is out of USB cables right now,
and Avnet is quoting a 6-week lead time.

Xilinx -- perhaps wisely -- doesn't support many versions of Linux.

So unless I can find someone in the Portland, Oregon area that has a USB
JTAG cable for sale, rent, or beg, I need to either make what I have
work under Ubuntu, I need to resurrect my dual-bootishness, or I need to
run a Xilinx-approved Linux flavor. Ick, ick, and ick.

* Or at least a highly irritating Linux Geek

** And I seem to have lost the recipe on my dual-boot system, 'cause
it's been a long long time since I needed to.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
From: Brian Drummond on 21 Jul 2010 19:10
On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:10:37 -0700, Tim Wescott <tim(a)seemywebsite.com> wrote:

>Is there any way to do this?
>
>Is there any way to do this without standing on my head?
>

It doesn't quite involve standing on your head (at least in OpenSuse 11, I
haven't tried it in Ubuntu) but it does involve finding a "usb-driver" library
that also supports the parallel port. (The Xilinx-supported "libusb" is a
different beast)

I got it from
http://rmdir.de/~michael/xilinx/

It uses the "ppdev" driver to communicate the parport, and only works at 200kHz
(Par Cable 3 compatibility mode) but once I got ot going I haven't had any
trouble with it.

Better than the official Xilinx approach using Jungo Windriver, which won't even
build on any post-2008 kernel, as far as I can tell...

- Brian
From: Symon on 21 Jul 2010 20:01
On 7/21/2010 11:10 PM, Tim Wescott wrote:
> but Xilinx is out of USB cables right now,
> and Avnet is quoting a 6-week lead time.
>
>
I see several on our favourite tat bazaar.

EBay...

e.g.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Xilinx-Platform-Cable-USB-Programmer-FPGA-JTAG-DHL-/190412257236?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c557477d4

Genuine HK knockoffs.



From: Tim Wescott on 22 Jul 2010 13:58
On 07/21/2010 04:10 PM, Brian Drummond wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:10:37 -0700, Tim Wescott<tim(a)seemywebsite.com> wrote:
>
>> Is there any way to do this?
>>
>> Is there any way to do this without standing on my head?
>>
>
> It doesn't quite involve standing on your head (at least in OpenSuse 11, I
> haven't tried it in Ubuntu) but it does involve finding a "usb-driver" library
> that also supports the parallel port. (The Xilinx-supported "libusb" is a
> different beast)

I had to tilt it over 45 degrees or so, though. I don't mind building
my own software -- at least I know who to blame when things go bad --
but life can be a pain when the build process goes

* Download from some website
* type "make"
* see a flood of errors...

Fortunately in this case it was "type make, fiddle a very little bit,
see impact work".

> I got it from
> http://rmdir.de/~michael/xilinx/
>
> It uses the "ppdev" driver to communicate the parport, and only works at 200kHz
> (Par Cable 3 compatibility mode) but once I got ot going I haven't had any
> trouble with it.
>
> Better than the official Xilinx approach using Jungo Windriver, which won't even
> build on any post-2008 kernel, as far as I can tell...

Thank you, thank you for that link. The software limits the speed of
the cable to that of the Parallel Cable III, but I'm just doing a small
corner of a large design* so I'm not going to be impeded much by cable
speed.

And I'm happy that Xilinx made their tools Linux compatible, too. I
know I'm swimming upstream to use Linux, but I just like it better than
Windows for all sorts of reasons.

* My corner is a motion controller to spin a motor synchronously with
some other processes going on in the system. I'm really a control
systems guy who writes decent software, but in a pinch I can write ugly
HDL code that gets the job done. Since my customer is indeed in a
pinch, that's what I'm doing.

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you.
See details at http://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html
From: Brian Drummond on 22 Jul 2010 15:05
On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:58:35 -0700, Tim Wescott <tim(a)seemywebsite.com> wrote:

>On 07/21/2010 04:10 PM, Brian Drummond wrote:
>> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:10:37 -0700, Tim Wescott<tim(a)seemywebsite.com> wrote:

>>> Is there any way to do this without standing on my head?

>but life can be a pain when the build process goes
>
> * Download from some website
> * type "make"
> * see a flood of errors...

I hear you...

>Fortunately in this case it was "type make, fiddle a very little bit,
>see impact work".

Glad to hear it. In my case it was more like "download half a dozen, get
distracted for six months**, build them all, see flood of errors, until I found
the one that worked...

** happens to me a lot, nowadays...

>* My corner is a motion controller to spin a motor synchronously with
>some other processes going on in the system.

Cool. I may have to quiz you later on synchronous motor controllers. Not for the
day job though...

- Brian
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