Linux on Zybo made with Windows Vivado+SDK, Ubuntu VM

[toastedcpu]

Hello,

I have Windows machine with Vivado2017.2 and SDK installed, also I got VirtualBox Ubuntu 14.04. I am not set up properly to do Digilent's tutorial by K Franz at 

http://www.instructables.com/id/Embedded-Linux-Tutorial-Zybo/ because it assumes Vivado and SDK installed on Linux.  At step 20, when I download https://github.com/Digilent/u-boot-Digilent-Dev.git, and compile at step 21, the Ubuntu installation has no Xilinx tools inside it.

knarf@knarf-VirtualBox:~/Documents/digilent-u-boot.git$ make CROSS_COMPILE=arm-xilinx-gnueabi-zynq_zybo_config
System not configured - see README
make: *** [all] Error 1
knarf@knarf-VirtualBox:~/Documents/digilent-u-boot.git$ 

What is the easiest way to fix my setup? Can I download something much smaller than the full sized Vivado and SDK?

Would this work https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/embedded-design-tools.html

Xilinx_SDK_2018.1_0405_1_Lin64.bin ? It has three install options XSDK, XSCT and BootGen.  It is over 10GB for the first two choices.

 

My main goal is to be able to write code in Linux that reads and writes to registers of PL IP I design.

Frank

 

[jpeyron]

Hi @toastedcpu,

I believe you need the software set up as described in the instructable to complete the instructable. Your link is for sdk only and does not include vivado. We also have a couple of petalinux builds for the zybo linked on the Petalinux Support for Digilent Boards table. These build also include a quick start guide in the read me file.

thank you,

Jon

 

[sbobrowicz]

Jon is right, you are going to need to install Vivado in your Ubuntu VM. And trust me, I understand how big of a pain this is.

I use VM's for all of my Xilinx builds, I've actually found them very useful for addressing the never ending storage suck that is installing up to date Xilinx tools. What I do is have a single Ubuntu VM with 200 GB allocated present on my 512GB NVMe drive. I consider that active, and it typically has the most recent  version of the Xilinx tools installed (Vivado, petalinux, SDx). When a new version of the tools comes out, I close the VM, copy all of the files to a 4 TB sata HDD, reopen the active VM, uninstall all of the old versions of the Xilinx tools, and install the newer versions of the Xilinx tools. Then, if I ever need to use an older version of the tools, I just close my active VM and open the old copy of the VM. It runs slower, because it is on spinning rust, but that is the best solution I've had so far.

In the case of a laptop, where you don't have a 4TB drive, I would recommend using a cloud service or large, external USB3 HDD. Since you wouldn't be able to run a VM in the cloud and the USB3 HDD would probably be pretty slow, I'd recommend a USB3 SSD. Then, when you need to run an old version of the tools, copy the old VM to the USB3 SSD, and run the VM directly off of the USB3 SSD. I use this type of setup when I am on the road. I recommend this drive (or the 250GB model): https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-T5-Portable-SSD-MU-PA500B/dp/B073GZBT36/ref=dp_ob_title_ce?dpID=318I0KrjRKL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=detail

If you are planning on doing any sort of long-ish term work with Xilinx tools, doing the work to setup a system such as this is the only way you will mitigate serious space related headaches. If you are looking for a short-term, free solution, just do what you need to do to free up enough space on your drives and then install the Xilinx tools in your VM. I recommend uninstalling the Xilinx tools on your Host machine.

[toastedcpu]

Cool, thanks to both of you. I installed Vivado 2015.4 for Linux. I am more advanced in the steps now.

When I wrote:

make CROSS_COMPILE=arm-xilinx-gnueabi-zynq_zybo_config

This is wrong. It was missing a space. It should be changed to 

make CROSS_COMPILE=arm-xilinx-gnueabi- zynq_zybo_config

I saw in a downloaded older PDF of the instructables article ZYBO written with capitals. This was corrected in the instructables article.

I had to do install for Ubuntu 14.04

sudo apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncuses5 lib32bz2-1.0

because even after `source /opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2015.4/settings.sh`, it was complaining about files not found.