Altera Design Software
This tutorial shows how to download, install, and configure the following software from Altera:
- Quartus II Subscription Edition v14.1
- USB-Blaster (I and II) Download Cable Driver
- ModelSim-Altera Edition 10.3c (As included with Quartus II Subscription Edition v14.1)
Quartus II Subscription Edition
The following procedure shows how to download, install, and configure Altera Quartus II Subscription Edition v14.1 for Arch Linux.
Quartus II is Altera's design software collection to design and interact with all their FPGAs/CPLDs/etc. products.
The procedure focuses on Arch Linux 64-bit systems, although 32-bit installations should work fine too.
Quartus II Subscription Edition v14.1 is officially supported for RHEL 5 and RHEL 6, but since it's one of those huge collections of proprietary software that doesn't interact so much with the distribution, it's fairly easy to install on Arch Linux.
Get Quartus II
In Altera's Downloads section, select Linux as the operating system
and get the Combined Files tar archive (something like Quartus-14.1.0.186-linux-complete.tar
).
Install dependencies
Although the main Quartus II software is 64-bit, lots of Altera tools shipped with Quartus II are still 32-bit
softwares. Those include the Nios II EDS and Qsys, for example. This is why we need to install lots of
lib32-
libraries and other programs from the Arch Linux Multilib repo. Obviously, if you have a 32-bit
Arch Linux system, you don't need the Multilib versions.
In order to install Multilib packages using pacman, you need to enable the multilib repository first (if not already done).
All the packages required below are taken from Altera Software Installation and Licensing (sect. 1-4).
Let's first install the native versions of the required packages: expat fontconfig freetype2 glibc gtk2 libcanberra libpng libpng12 libice libsm util-linux ncurses tcl tcllib zlib libx11 libxau libxdmcp libxext libxft libxrender libxt libxtst.
And the Multilib versions: lib32-expat lib32-fontconfig lib32-freetype2 lib32-glibc lib32-gtk2 lib32-libcanberra lib32-libpng lib32-libpng12 lib32-libice lib32-libsm lib32-util-linux lib32-ncurses lib32-zlib lib32-libx11 lib32-libxau lib32-libxdmcp lib32-libxext lib32-libxft lib32-libxrender lib32-libxt lib32-libxtst.
You are now ready to install and launch Quartus II.
Installing
To install, first extract the downloaded tar archive:
$ tar -xvf Quartus-14.1.0.186-linux-complete.tar
and launch setup.sh
. If you're going to install Quartus II anywhere outside your
home directory, run it as root:
# ./setup.sh
You will probably get a GUI install wizard if you installed all the aforementioned packages. You might also get a command-line interactive install wizard, which will do the same.
The default install path is /root/altera/14.1
, but some prefer /opt/altera/14.1
, which we assume
for the rest of this document.
Make sure to include the 64-bit option of Quartus II when installing.
Launching Quartus II
Assuming you installed Quartus II in /opt/altera/14.1
, Quartus II binaries are located into /opt/altera/14.1/quartus/bin
.
Run Quartus II (64-bit version):
$ /opt/altera/14.1/quartus/bin/quartus --64bit
or the 32-bit version:
$ /opt/altera/14.1/quartus/bin/quartus
All other Altera tools, like Qsys, the Nios II EDS, Chip Planner and SignalTap II may be launched without any problem from the Tools menu of Quartus II.
Integrating Quartus II with the system
Quartus II can be integrated with the system in several ways, but those are optional.
PATH
variable
Let's now add the Quartus bin
folder to the PATH
variable so it can be executed without specifying its absolute path.
Create a quartus.sh
file in the /etc/profile.d
directory
/etc/profile.d/quartus.sh
export PATH=$PATH:/opt/altera/14.1/quartus/bin
Also, make sure it can be executed:
# chmod +x /etc/profile.d/quartus.sh
Please note that those profile.d
files are loaded at each login. In the mean time, simply source
that file in Bash:
$ source /etc/profile.d/quartus.sh
Other environment variables related to Quartus can be found in the official installation manual.
Even if quartus
is now a command known by Bash, you still need to add the --64bit
argument in order to launch the 64-bit
version. A shell alias, like quartus64
, is a great solution to avoid typing it each time.
A freedesktop.org application menu entry (which a lot of desktop environments and window managers follow) can be added
to the system by creating a quartus.desktop
file in your ~/.local/share/applications
directory:
~/.local/share/applications/quartus.desktop
[Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Name=Quartus II Subscription Edition v14.1 Comment=Quartus II design software for Altera FPGA's Exec=/opt/altera/14.1/quartus/bin/quartus --64bit Icon=/opt/altera/14.1/quartus/adm/quartusii.png Terminal=false Type=Application Categories=Development
USB-Blaster Download Cable Driver
The USB-Blaster (I and II) Download Cable is a cable that allows you to download configuration data from your computer to your FPGA, CPLD or EEPROM configuration device. However, Altera only provides official support for RHEL, SUSE Entreprise and CentOS, so we are required to do a little bit of work to make it work with Arch Linux. If you want some more detail about this cable, please refer to the USB-Blaster Download Cable User Guide.
Create a new udev rule:
/etc/udev/rules.d/51-altera-usb-blaster.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="09fb", ATTR{idProduct}=="6001", MODE="0666" SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="09fb", ATTR{idProduct}=="6002", MODE="0666" SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="09fb", ATTR{idProduct}=="6003", MODE="0666" SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="09fb", ATTR{idProduct}=="6010", MODE="0666" SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="09fb", ATTR{idProduct}=="6810", MODE="0666"
Then, reload that file using udevadm
:
# udevadm control --reload
To check that everything is working, plug your FPGA or CPLD board using your USB-Blaster Download Cable and run:
$ /opt/altera/14.1/quartus/bin/jtagconfig
You should have an output similar to this one
1) USB-Blaster [USB 1-1.1] 020B30DD EP2C15/20
If jtagconfig output doesn't contain board name, you might have problems with launching nios2 tools. In order to workaround this issue, you should copy jtagd settings to /etc/jtagd:
# mkdir /etc/jtagd # cp /opt/altera/14.1/quartus/linux/pgm_parts.txt /etc/jtagd/jtagd.pgm_parts
and restart jtagd:
$ jtagconfig 1) USB-Blaster [2-4] 020F30DD $ killall jtagd $ jtagd $ jtagconfig 1) USB-Blaster [2-4] 020F30DD EP3C25/EP4CE22
If there seems to be an error message about "linux64" and you didn't install the 64-bit version of Quartus II,
create a symlink from linux
to linux64
in /opt/altera/14.1/quartus
:
# ln -s /opt/altera/14.1/quartus/linux /opt/altera/14.1/quartus/linux64
ModelSim-Altera Edition
Install
ModelSim-Altera Edition 10.3c is downloaded and installed from the Combined Files tar archive Quartus-14.1.0.186-linux-complete.tar
as part of the Quartus II installation procedure above.
Compatibility with Archlinux
With the kernel 3.x
Modelsim has a problem with the version 3 of linux kernel. You need to edit the file to make it compatible :
change
/opt/altera/14.1/modelsim_ae/bin/vsim line 210
*) vco="linux_rh60" ;;
to
/opt/altera/14.1/modelsim_ae/bin/vsim line 210
*) vco="linux" ;;
With freetype2 2.5.0.1-1
The upgrade from freetype2 version 2.5.0.1-1 to 2.5.0.1-2 (October 2013[1]) causes the following error in ModelSim:
$ vsim Error in startup script: Initialization problem, exiting. Initialization problem, exiting. Initialization problem, exiting. while executing "EnvHistory::Reset" (procedure "PropertiesInit" line 3) invoked from within "PropertiesInit" invoked from within "ncFyP12 -+" (file "/opt/questasim/linux_x86_64/../tcl/vsim/vsim" line 1) ** Fatal: Read failure in vlm process (0,0)
There are two solutions to solve this problem. The first involves downgrading the Package ( http://seblu.net/a/arm/2013/10/11/multilib/os/x86_64/lib32-freetype2-2.5.0.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz or http://seblu.net/a/arm/2013/10/11/extra/os/x86_64/freetype2-2.5.0.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz ). The second and more elegant solution involves replacing the old freetype version for ModelSim only without withholding updates on the whole system (originally proposed at the now-dead link http://communities.mentor.com/mgcx/message/46770):
- Copy the freetype library and simlinks somewhere in the altera folder, eg:
$HOME/altera/xx.x/lib32/
libfreetype.so libfreetype.so.6 libfreetype.so.6.10.2
- Edit the ModelSim script in
/opt/altera/14.1/modelsim_ae/bin/vsim
and add near the top (after the#!/bin/sh
)
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/user/altera/xx.x/lib32
Install libraries
Install library libxft and ncurses.
$ sudo pacman -S libxft ncurses libxext
For 64 bit edition, install these library from multilib repository
$ sudo pacman -S lib32-libxft lib32-ncurses lib32-libxext
Application Menu Entry - ModelSim-Altera Edition
You can add Modelsim to your system application menu by creating a modelsim.desktop
file in your ~/.local/share/applications
directory
~/.local/share/applications/modelsim.desktop
[Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Name=ModelSim-Altera Edition 10.3c Comment=ModelSim simulation software for Altera FPGA's Exec=/opt/altera/14.1/modelsim_ae/bin/vsim Icon=/opt/altera/14.1/modelsim_ae/modesim.gif Terminal=true Type=Application Categories=Development
Resolving the "ModelSim Failed to access library 'work'" error
The solution was originally documented here: http://jackeyblog.blogspot.com/2005/07/note-myself-modelsim-failed-to-access.html
If you receive the error:
Error: (vcom-19) Failed to access library 'work' at "work".
when running a simulation in a new directory, you must create a new work
directory. Execute the following in the ModelSim console:
ModelSim> vlib work