Re: gEDA-user: CPLDs and other high-density logic chips...

[Joshua Boyd <jdboyd@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Sep 04, 2006 at 01:25:49PM -0500, Mike Hansen wrote:
> These are very easy parts to work with, there is even a 44 pin PLCC version 
> if you have an aversion to doing smt hand work.   The Xilinx software is 
> free(as long as you are OK with using Windows).   You can purchase proto 
> boards that come with the programming cable for like $40.  That's your 
> total out of pocket cost to get started.  There are plenty of good Verilog 
> tutorials out on the internet.

Xilinx software hasn't been windows only for a long time, if it was ever
windows only in the first place.  They support Solaris and Linux (well,
they used to support Solaris, but I haven't verified if they still do
recently). 

For a long time, the WebPack edition was windows only, but starting
somewhere in Version 7, the WebPack is also available for Linux.
Officially only RHEL3 was supported.  I tried it on RHEL3, and the main
ISE program still didn't want to work (badly broken file browser, and I
couldn't figure out how to do anything useful without opening or
importing files).  Impact (their JTAG or SVF generation program) worked
though.  Previously I had gotten the main ISE programming working on a
Ubuntu system, but Impact depended on RHEL only binary only loadable
modules. 

A month or three ago version 8 of the Webpack was released for Linux.
They only support RHEL3 and RHEL4 still.  Impact still depends on binary
only loadable modules build for RHEL.  The ISE application still works
on Ubuntu but not Impact.  The GUI is much improved, I will say that.  I
tried to install Webpack 8.x on a RHEL3 machine, but the hardware
requirements went way up and it won't complete installation on that
Celeron 300 anymore.  The machine has several gigs free, but the Webpack
apparently needs 6+ gigs free to install (and about 2.5 is used after
the install).  Furthermore, the parts that did get installed were
unbearably slow.  Time to get a faster machine.

I have no experience with any Altera or Lattice tools.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd
jdboyd@xxxxxxxxxx
http://www.jdboyd.net/
http://www.joshuaboyd.org/


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