Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

kamilsok · 2011-11-14 11:33:09

I was wondering, since I'm a developer and considering Arch for my workstation, are there many FPGA, embedded etc. designers/developers in the Arch community or at least using Arch for their work?

I don't know, if Arch is as popular among software developers of many kinds (or should I say languages), as i.e. Gentoo is, but looking at the whole distro concept (minimalism, simplicity, configurability etc.) it should draw a lot them.

So.. it would be good to know, that, besides Arch/Linux specific support, help for that kind of development speciallity is also not far away

CyberKieken · 2011-11-15 10:42:33

I am forced to use a combination of Windows/Mac at my current employer(s), but I have used Arch to develop in Xilinx and had actually no real problems in getting everything to run smoothly...

kamilsok · 2011-11-15 10:54:21

+1.. uffff (I was beginning to worry, that there are no programmable logic devs in Arch community;))

For me the community support (especially experienced users, who share my points of interest and are willing to share their knowledge) is very important. That's why I'm asking.

I hope there's more out there:D

Awebb · 2011-11-15 13:16:25

I bet if you came up with an actual problem, question or project, the Archers would land on your thread like the flies on a formidable turd :-D

kamilsok · 2011-11-15 13:31:17

Awebb wrote:

I bet if you came up with an actual problem, question or project, the Archers would land on your thread like the flies on a formidable turd :-D

I can imagine.. that's way I've started this on the discussion forum;)

I just want to know users opinions, experiences and their will to share them.

pommes_ · 2011-11-15 15:26:06

As far as my Internship here goes I am using Arch for embedded development. I am working on NXP LPC1769 with an ARM Cortex M3 and on a TechNexion TDM3730 with an ARM Cortex A8. Whereas the TDM3730 work is more about Linux Kernel development, writing drivers and so on.

kamilsok · 2011-11-15 20:34:28

pommes_ wrote:

As far as my Internship here goes I am using Arch for embedded development. I am working on NXP LPC1769 with an ARM Cortex M3 and on a TechNexion TDM3730 with an ARM Cortex A8. Whereas the TDM3730 work is more about Linux Kernel development, writing drivers and so on.

And what software tools are You using for development? How's the stability and reliability? Did You have any problems with PC-devel board communication (drivers etc.)

I deleted your accidental double post of this. --bernarcher

Last edited by bernarcher (2011-11-15 22:39:34)

pommes_ · 2011-11-16 10:36:37

kamilsok wrote:

pommes_ wrote:
As far as my Internship here goes I am using Arch for embedded development. I am working on NXP LPC1769 with an ARM Cortex M3 and on a TechNexion TDM3730 with an ARM Cortex A8. Whereas the TDM3730 work is more about Linux Kernel development, writing drivers and so on.
And what software tools are You using for development? How's the stability and reliability? Did You have any problems with PC-devel board communication (drivers etc.)
I deleted your accidental double post of this. --bernarcher

For the LPC1769 I am using the LpcExpresso IDE which is a modified Eclipse. It works good enough to get the Job done, but I try to avoid it if I can.
For the TDM3730 we use the CodeSourcery Toolchain and the editor of my choice which is at the moment 'geany'. Both are very stable and reliable. Besides that I use the standard command line utilities and 'cutecom' as serial terminal.

So far I had no board communication problem that was caused by arch.

kamilsok · 2011-11-17 09:32:14

Nice to hear, that Arch "behaves" well as devel workstation. I was trying it out a couple of months ago, and it suited me very well. Unfortunately I never got to the "establishing workstation" part, since my work commitments forced my to switch to CentOS. Then I've decided to to try Gentoo, and, as much fun and learning curve, as it provides, I'm still considering Arch as #1 because of Gentoo maintenance times. Although there are the stability issues, which part of the users complain about (I didn't experience any by the time).

Has any one else used Xilinx tools or Arch? Modelsim maybe?
I'm also thinking about using open source HDL compilers (gHDL, IcarusVerilog). Has any one had experience with those? Are they worth looking at, or does ISE build in compiler do the job well enough?

aport · 2011-12-03 21:46:45

I run arch on two of my development machines. The other runs windows (company policy) so I just use it for reading email.

The target itself runs OpenWrt, which is perhaps the coolest linux distribution.

Duca · 2011-12-23 01:51:58

I mainly did some college projects using at89s52 but i also do some work to myself using atmegas (6, 168 and 644). I use mcu8051ide for 89s52 (it's pretty nice) and codeblocks for my atmega parts. I really like codeblocks and i find mcu8051ide stable and feature rich

vfbsilva · 2011-12-23 14:21:37

I'm using arch for coding in systemc. Well sometimes there are packages lacking and we need to install them manually. I would like someone to help me to edit the systemc packages. But it is nice to know there is people out there with the same problems as me. About gentoo I've used it for embedded programming and I can say it is awesome in the sense portage has a bunch load of packages inhireted from ports. Arch is still growing up regarding this scenario.

@kamilsok: I had some problems to build ISE in arch. A friend of mine used ghdl he says it is oki. I use systemc which is another way to describe software. If you want join efforts to port some packages to help this kind of wark let me know.

Regards.

beatle · 2011-12-31 12:49:19

Until recently I developed for MSP430 family in work using my Arch system. I can't remember any distro unique problem with Arch. For me at least it worked better then the Ubuntu set-up I had before it.

Anthony Bentley · 2012-01-01 05:58:24

In a general Unix sense, the biggest advantage over Windows for embedded development is definitely package management.

At a previous job, I wrote code for some Olimex ARM boards, to help a grad student with his thesis. He had set up a development environment on his home Windows PC, but later could not reproduce the installation on the lab computers: finding a cross‐compiled Windows ARM toolchain, compiling OpenOCD in Cygwin, and then configuring Eclipse to tie it all together.

On my OpenBSD laptop, I did “pkg_add openocd arm-elf-gcc”, wrote a simple Hello World in C, and got the board blinking an LED in no time at all. He was impressed.

So a great and simple way to make your distro more usable for embedded development is to create packages when they don’t exist. It’s pragmatic (because really, nobody wants to remember the right configure flags and recompile GCC again). Arch seems to have packages for quite a few embedded toolchains and/or communication software, which is nice.

vfbsilva · 2012-01-02 00:14:26

Anthony Bentley wrote:

In a general Unix sense, the biggest advantage over Windows for embedded development is definitely package management.
At a previous job, I wrote code for some Olimex ARM boards, to help a grad student with his thesis. He had set up a development environment on his home Windows PC, but later could not reproduce the installation on the lab computers: finding a cross‐compiled Windows ARM toolchain, compiling OpenOCD in Cygwin, and then configuring Eclipse to tie it all together.
On my OpenBSD laptop, I did “pkg_add openocd arm-elf-gcc”, wrote a simple Hello World in C, and got the board blinking an LED in no time at all. He was impressed.
So a great and simple way to make your distro more usable for embedded development is to create packages when they don’t exist. It’s pragmatic (because really, nobody wants to remember the right configure flags and recompile GCC again). Arch seems to have packages for quite a few embedded toolchains and/or communication software, which is nice.

I've packaged systemc to arch. I would like to have it on AUR. Thou I dont have the will to write all the flags of the package. I have something which works perfectly to my needs. I would happily hand the code if someone would like to place it properly in AUR.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-11-14 11:33:09

Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#2 2011-11-15 10:42:33

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#3 2011-11-15 10:54:21

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#4 2011-11-15 13:16:25

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#5 2011-11-15 13:31:17

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#6 2011-11-15 15:26:06

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#7 2011-11-15 20:34:28

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#8 2011-11-16 10:36:37

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#9 2011-11-17 09:32:14

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#10 2011-12-03 21:46:45

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#11 2011-12-23 01:51:58

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#12 2011-12-23 14:21:37

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#13 2011-12-31 12:49:19

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#14 2012-01-01 05:58:24

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

#15 2012-01-02 00:14:26

Re: Do many FPGA/embedded developers use Arch?

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