LinuxCon: Open hardware for open hardware [LWN.net]

LinuxCon: Open hardware for open hardware

Posted Sep 17, 2012 15:52 UTC (Mon) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432)
Parent article: LinuxCon: Open hardware for open hardware

One thing sorely needed is open FPGA tools. Particularly the tools to create and transfer bitstreams to the device. Any progress in this area?

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LinuxCon: Open hardware for open hardware

Posted Sep 19, 2012 6:05 UTC (Wed) by mmorrow (subscriber, #83845) [Link]

Yes, this is sorely needed, and I think the most important next step that FPGA manufacturers need to take.

What are the current impediments to this happening?

LinuxCon: Open hardware for open hardware

Posted Sep 19, 2012 6:12 UTC (Wed) by mmorrow (subscriber, #83845) [Link]

To clarify, in particular I'm referring to the documentation of their bitstream formats, in analogy with cpu ISAs.

FPGA tools

Posted Sep 24, 2012 13:12 UTC (Mon) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link]

At some point, Xilinx seems to have had software for Linux:

There seems to be folks out there developing FPGAs under Linux

I know this is the "wrong way 'round", but some are running Linux *in* an FPGA:

This one seems to be a "no" to your question:

All in all, it seems worth poking around. Just let us know your results ;-D

Oh, and this one seems promising too:

FPGA tools

Posted Sep 27, 2012 23:34 UTC (Thu) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]

Thanks for the links! indeed, a more linux journal article (http://m.linuxjournal.com/magazine/fpga-programming-linux) points at xilinx (http://www.xilinx.com/products/design-tools/ise-design-su...) whose webpack claims to support linux. So now to save up. :-)