Xilinx recently released the Linux version of their free ISE WebPack software. The good news is that with just a little loving, it appears to run OK. This blog entry will summarize my experiences as I install and play with the software a bit. It is in no way intended to be a complete reference (yet).

Prerequisites that I did not see mentioned:

• libcurl
• OpenMotif

Installing

• First thing: You must be root to install.
• Second: No, it didn't crash, it's just ass slow. Go get a coffee.
• The RPC portmapper seems to be needed for the install. Start it with /etc/init.d/portmap start or the equivalent for your distribution.
• Run the command export DISPLAY=:0
• Do this even if you don't think you have to. The Wind/U toolkit used by Xilinx is retarded and doesn't understand DISPLAY=:0.0 like every other X application on the planet.
• I don't think it's a good idea to install to /root. I'd suggest changing the install path to /opt/Xilinx.
• After the install process, there were a handful of errors saying that it couldn't write to /etc/rc.local. I'm assuming that it wants a license server to start at boot, but it does appear to run fine without it.

Running

• The installer creates a script file for you called settings.sh. This file sets up your environment. I used this to create a startup script for ISE as follows:
  1. cp /opt/Xilinx/settings.sh /usr/local/bin/startise
  2. echo "export DISPLAY=:0" >> /usr/local/bin/startise
  3. echo "exec ise" >> /usr/local/bin/startise
  4. chmod +x /usr/local/bin/startise
  5. Start the application with: startise
• The RPC portmapper isn't required for this to run; however, it starts faster if the portmapper is running.
• You do NOT need to be root to run the application. Programming the board is direct hardware access, however. This can be accomplished in two ways:
• Run as root when programming a board.
• Set the permissions of the device used (probably /dev/lp0) to allow full access.

So far, everything appears to work fine. I've made a few sample projects with the VHDL editor and the schematic editor and have gone as far as generating the programming files. However, the Digilent board that I have is one of the older ones with only a parallel port on it and I don't have a machine with a parallel port available any more. When I have time, I'll swing by the office and see if I can actually program the board.