Installing syfala on Ubuntu

The Syfala toolchain is a compilation toolchain of Faust programs onto AMD-Xilinx FPGA targets. This document explains how to install and run the version 0.7.1 of the toolchain on a Linux machine. In practice, installing the Syfala toolchain means:

  • Installing the required linux-packages
  • Installing the Faust compiler
  • Creating a AMD-Xilinx account and downloading/installing the 2022.2 version of the AMD-Xilinx toolchain (providing softwares such as Vivado, Vitis, Vitis HLS).
  • Installing the additionnal Vivado Board Files for Digilent Boards.
  • Installing udev rules in order to use the JTAG connection.
  • Cloning the Syfala repository, and running a simple example to make sure everything is working properly.

Dependencies

Packages

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install libncurses5 libtinfo-dev g++-multilib gtk2.0

Faust

It is recommended to clone Faust from the official github repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/grame-cncm/faust.git 
$ cd faust
$ make
$ sudo make install

Vivado, Vitis & Vitis HLS (2022.2 version)

  • Open an account on https://www.xilinx.com/registration

  • The Xilinx download page (https://www.xilinx.com/support/download.html) contains links for downloading the "Vivado Design Suite - HLx Editions - Full Product". It is available for both Linux and Windows.

  • Download the Linux installer Xilinx_Unified_2022.2_1014_8888_Lin64.bin

  • execute chmod a+x Xilinx_Unified_2022.2_1014_8888_Lin64.bin

  • execute ./Xilinx_Unified_2022.2_1014_8888_Lin64.bin

  • We suggest to use the "Download Image (Install Separately)" option. It creates a directory with a xsetup file to execute that you can reuse in case of failure during the installation

  • execute ./xsetup

  • Choose to install Vitis (it will still install Vivado, Vitis, and Vitis HLS).

  • It will need 110GB of disk space: if you uncheck Ultrascale, Ultrascale+, Versal ACAP and Alveo acceleration platform, it will use less space and still work.
  • Agree with everything and choose a directory to install (e.g. ~/Xilinx)
  • Install and wait for hours...
  • Setup a shell environment variable allowing to use the tools when necessary (add this to your ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc or whatever you're currently using, replacing $HOME/Xilinx by the directory you chose to install all the tools)
  • export XILINX_ROOT_DIR=$HOME/Xilinx

Installing Cable Drivers on Linux

  • go to: $XILINX_ROOT_DIR/Vivado/2022.2/data/xicom/cable_drivers/lin64/install_script/install_drivers directory
  • run ./install_drivers
  • run sudo cp 52-xilinx-digilent-usb.rules /etc/udev/rules.d, this allows JTAG connection through USB.

Installing Digilent Board Files

  • Download the board files here
  • Open the folder extracted from the archive and navigate to its new/board_files folder. You will be copying all of this folder's subfolders
  • go to $XILINX_ROOT_DIR/Vivado/2022.2/data/xhub/boards/XilinxBoardStore/boards/Xilinx
  • Copy all of the folders found in vivado-boards new/board_filesfolder and paste them into this folder

Cloning the Syfala repository

To clone and install the latest stable version of the Syfala toolchain, you can use the following commands:

$ git clone https://github.com/inria-emeraude/syfala 
$ cd syfala
$ ./syfala.tcl install
$syfala --help

In order to use the Syfala toolchain to compile your first example, please report to the main README file located in the repository's root directory.

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