Setting up Xilinx development tools on Debian

Debian is not a supported system for running the Xilinx developments tools. That does not mean you cannot use them on Debian. Here is a quick overview over the necessary steps to get them running on Jessie.

For installation of Vivado 2015.1 and newer a small hack is needed to convince the installer that we are on a 64bit system:

cat > /usr/local/bin/uname << EOF
#!/bin/bash

if [ "x${@}" == "x-i" ]; then
  exec /bin/uname -m
else
  exec /bin/uname "${@}"
fi
EOF
chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/uname

Although Vivado is 64bit only nowadays DocNav is still a 32bit application. If you want to use it you will need some additional libraries:

dpkg --add-architecture i386
apt update
apt install libstdc++6:i386 libfontconfig1:i386 libxext6:i386 \
            libxrender1:i386 libglib2.0-0:i386 libsm6:i386

Xilinx programmers need to be programmed with firmware when plugged in. So install it:

apt install fxload
git clone git://git.zerfleddert.de/usb-driver
cd usb-driver
./setup_pcusb /opt/Xilinx/14.7/ISE_DS/ISE

For Digilent devices used with ISE an iMPACT plugin and the Adept runtime needs to be installed.

cd /opt/Xilinx/14.7/ISE_DS/ISE/bin/lin64/digilent
./install_digilent.sh

iMPACT requires libusb but only looks for a libusb.so. So we have to help a litte bit:

ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libusb-1.0.so.0 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libusb.so

If only Vivado is to be used with modern Digilent devices no special cable drivers are required. The following script can be used to generate a udev rule to set device permissions properly:

cd /opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2015.2/data/xicom/cable_drivers/lin64/digilent
./install_digilent.sh

Before running the Xilinx tools the environment has to be set up accordingly. At least LC_NUMERIC should be set to C if you are in a region where a comma is used as decimal mark.

export LANG=C
export LM_LICENSE_FILE=PORT@YOUR.LICENSE.SERVER
source /opt/Xilinx/14.7/ISE_DS/settings64.sh

export LANG=C
export LM_LICENSE_FILE=PORT@YOUR.LICENSE.SERVER
source /opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2015.2/settings64.sh

If you want to change the looks of tools like ISE you can use the bundled qtconfig:

/opt/Xilinx/14.7/ISE_DS/ISE/bin/lin64/qtconfig

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Updates to this post:

• Aug 20, 2015: Update commands to match Vivado 2015.2