April 10, 2022

Xilinx Zynq - XC7Z010 - Xilinx SDK

Xilinx no longer wants you to use the SDK, they want you to use Vitis. Be that as it is, I have found attractive tutorials that describe using the SDK and since it is still available, I am working with it.

Installing

I found a link in the above post that would give me the 2019 SDK. This gave me (after I gave my Xilinx credentials) a file Xilinx_SDK_2019.1_0524_1430_Lin64.bin. This is some kind of sh archive, so I did chmod a+x on it and ran it. It tells me that a more recent kit (2021.2 is available), (This turns out to be Vivado ML aka Vitis). I ignore this and tell it to press on with 2019.1. It launches an installer that now wants to download more files. I tell it to download them onto my machine rather than directly installing them. It looks like it is putting them into: 
/u1/Xilinx/Downloads/2019.1/payload
I make a tarball of these.

I then repeat the whole thing again, but let it immediately install. I get 3 choices: XDSK, XSCT, or BootGen. I select XSDK. It wants to install to /tools/Xilinx, which is fine. It will go to /tools/Xilinx/SDK/2019.1 Note that on my system, /tools/Xilinx is a link to /u1/Xilinx. I do this because /u1 is a big disk with plenty of space.

Now I go for a 3rd time. I have to move /tools/Xilinx/SDK off to the side before it will run for me. Now I choose the 2021.2 design tools option. Aha -- this is leading me to the 2021.2 Vivado ML that I already have, so never mind. I put SDK back where it belongs and call it quits.

Once it is all done I see an SDK "icon" on my desktop. Inspecting it reveals that it runs /tools/Xilinx/SDK/2019.1/xsdk.

Run it

I fire it up.

I tell it to use /home/tom/Xilinx_SDK_workspace as its workspace. It seems to want to use a different workspace directory every time you fire it up, which is pretty stupid actually. The message is that the workspace is "currently in use by another Eclipse application". Well, it turns out this is correct and I did have another instance running. Note that Eclipse is this nasty slow Java based IDE gadget that I have used on other projects and hated for its sluggishness.

Once you get past the workspace issue, it gives you 5 choices:

It isn't clear how to get back to these choices (in particular the tutorials) once you start a project, since launching the SDK now always will take you directly into Eclipse for the latest project.

I create a project "Easy" and tell it to make it a "standalone" project. I select the Hello World template and just build it without making any changes using "Project -- Build Project". Then I look at 

/home/tom/Xilinx_SDK_workspace/Easy
It looks like all of the source code (and a makefile) is there to build the standalone project. In fact "Debug/Easy.elf" seems to be the final executable. Just how to somehow load and run it is another question entirely, and if we can ever figure out how to get back to those tutorials, maybe they will give us a clue. There is a "Run" button with many options.
Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Computer Info / tom@mmto.org
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Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Computer Info / tom@mmto.org