Arty Z7 Tutorial is out of sync with the vitis tool

[bloggins666]

Greetings,

I was able to successfully install the Linux implementation of the Xilinx tools Vivado & Vitis (2023.2).

I'm working with a Digilent Arty Z7 board. I'm following the 2nd tutorial "Getting Started with Vivado and Vitis for Baremetal Software Projects" from the Digilent product page: here

I was able to follow the tutorial quite well for the Vivado setup, no errors and then it was time to use the Vitis section. I'm on this page: here

 

However, the Vitis tool has obviously changed from an eclipse based framework to what looks like something similar to Visual Studio. Does a tutorial to use this new framework exist? Perhaps one of the other boards has a tutorial for this new version?

Cheers!!

 

[JColvin]

Hi @bloggins666,

I took a look at the Vitis Release Notes (https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/vitis.html) for 2023.2 that were published yesterday that there is a new GUI within Vitis. I don't think anybody at Digilent has gotten a chance to download 2023.2 yet, but considering that AMD/Xilinx is listing the new GUI as the first bullet point of highlighted features, we'll be sure to get the Baremetal Software guide updated as appropriate.

Thanks for the heads up,
JColvin

[bloggins666]

I have discovered that if you launch the Vitis IDE mentioned (the older one appears to be referred to as the Vitis SDK) from the command line (linux) you can pass the parameter "--classic" and you will get the eclipse based framework. This might get you through the tutorial. I haven't steeled myself to start over just yet.

Explain to me again how FPGA's were going to make our lives easier? Lol...

 

Cheers!!

[JColvin]

Hi @bloggins666,

No guide update yet, but letting you know that Digilent will be working on getting the guide updated within the next few weeks, hopefully by the end of November (the usual corporate resources/people having to wear multiple hats constraint strikes again); my co-worker got a project successfully created and launched an application in 2023.2, but noted that the step-by-step flow is quite different and the guide update is definitely needed.

FWIW, they weren't able to get the --classic parameter to work via the Windows command line, but maybe Linux will have a different result.

Thanks,
JColvin

[artvvb]

Adam Taylor posted a detailed blog post with a lot of good information on the UI differences yesterday. It looks like there are changes to how example programs initialize and interact with peripheral drivers in addition to the new component model of abstraction. Link here: https://www.adiuvoengineering.com/post/microzed-chronicles-introducing-vitis-unified-ide

Thanks,
Arthur

[bloggins666]

This is great guys and I thank you for finding this information.

So another issue...

When I created a Vivado project for the Arty-Z7(20) board I launched the Vitis tool (classic) I created a FreeRTOS project. I made sure it built and then used the "migrate" option from within the Vitis -classic tool that is provided so I can then run the Vitis IDE 2023 tool to migrate the older project format to the newer. It fails. It will work with a bare metal project but not with FreeRTOS added in (I say added in since in fact FreeRTOS is a bare metal application with some nice juicy bits added on).

I captured the error output from two different scenarios. One from the migrate attempt and is attached as vitis-migrate-error.txt

I then tried to create a FreeRTOS based project within Vitis IDE and it failed. I've attached the output as vitis-freertos-error.txt

I've posted these issues on the Xilinx support site as well and some people have looked at it but there have been no responses and I wonder if it's because this is not their board?

I have a small issue with the Vitis SDK version of FreeRTOS as it appears to be older and does not include some of the Add-ons so I may see how to import the version of FreeRTOS that I want into the image. Be prepared for the kind of Whining and Complaining that only a fat 63 yr old is capable of. lol..

 

Cheers!!

"To err is human but, to forgive is NOT corporate policy"

vitis-migrate-error.txt vitis-freertos-error.txt

[artvvb]

Hey @bloggins666,

No worries. I've never touched FreeRTOS personally, and am only just seeing this kind of cmake error for the first time, but I'll take a stab at providing some suggestions on directions to look in. The exception in the migrate-error log 'Error in adding domain.'freertos10_xilinx' is an invalid os for the given platform.'' implies there's an incompatibility between the platform project and the software you want to run on it. Potentially missing required peripherals. CMake Error at libsrc/freertos10_xilinx/src/freertos10_xilinx.cmake:330 (message): A53, R5 or A72 FreeRTOS need a TTC in the system without it cannot work is weird, the ARM processors it mentions are not the A9, which feels like it implies that the error may be firing unnecessarily - if you've used FreeRTOS in previous versions, I assume this error or an equivalent does not appear there?

Speculation aside, your best bet is to contact AMD/Xilinx support.

Thanks,

Arthur

[bloggins666]

Thanks Artvvb, I have sent both files to AMD/Xilinx support along with a write-up and as I mentioned, no response as of yet. It's been about 10 days.

Since I want a more up to date and complete FreeRTOS system I'll probably stick with the bare metal project and then just write in the OS as an application.

My next task is to get the petalinux image to work. I've not even come close to getting that up and running. Are there any tutorials on that for this board? I see in the Digilent page "out of the box" images that are for using the HDMI but nothing on just getting petalinux up and running on this board.

Cheers!!

[artvvb]

Digilent-provided Petalinux material for the Arty Z7 is pretty out-of-date. I'd take a shot at running through Adam Taylor's or Whitney Knitter's posts on the topic:

• https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/arty-z7/intro-to-fpga (2021.1)
• https://www.hackster.io/whitney-knitter/linux-on-zynq-arty-z7-linux-design-in-petalinux-2022-1-40c490 (2022.1)

Note version numbers though, I'd expect 2023.2 to have some changes.

Thanks,

Arthur

[bloggins666]

Thanks Arthur, I've watched Whitney's videos and found them very good (although I don't like her cat's attitude, it's as if it doesn't care!). I'll check around and see if I can put the process together from bits and pieces of both of them.

Thanks for all you help!!

And now it's Pub time.

Cheers!!