Syfala toolchain dependencies

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 0.10.0 of the toolchain on a Linux machine. In practice, installing the Syfala toolchain means:

• Installing the required linux-packages, depending on your Linux distribution.
• Installing the Faust compiler
• Creating a AMD-Xilinx account and downloading/installing the 2024.1 version (2022.2 and 2023.2 are also still supported) of the AMD-Xilinx toolchain (providing softwares such as Vivado, Vitis, Vitis HLS).
• Installing the additional 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.

Linux platforms

We recommend using Ubuntu (>= 18.04 LTS) for installing and using the toolchain, since it is officially supported by AMD-Xilinx. While it is still possible to use other distributions, such as Archlinux, you may encounter unresolved bugs, which won't necessarily appear in our Troubleshooting section below.

Ubuntu/Debian dependencies

sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install git libncurses5 libtinfo-dev build-essential default-jre pkg-config g++-multilib gtk+2.0 locales

Archlinux dependencies

# faust (required)
sudo pacman -S faust

# for xilinx vivado/vitis etc.
yay -S ncurses5-compat-libs libxcrypt-compat libpng12 lib32-libpng12 xorg-xlsclients gtk2

Faust

It is recommended to clone Faust from the official github repository: https://github.com/grame-cncm/faust

git clone https://github.com/grame-cncm/faust.git 
cd faust
make -j8
sudo make install

Vivado, Vitis & Vitis HLS (2024.1 version)

• Open an account on https://www.amd.com/en/registration/create-account.html

A) Using flatpak

• Install flatpak and run flatpak install flathub com.github.corna.Vivado
• Run flatpak run com.github.corna.Vivado and choose the 2024.1 version.
• Type-in your AMD/Xilinx account login and password.
• Proceed with installation following the information below.

B) Manually

• The AMD-Xilinx download page contains links for downloading the Vivado Design Suite - HLx Editions - Full Product. It is available for both Linux and Windows.

• Download the Linux installer FPGAs_AdaptiveSoCs_Unified_2024.1_0522_2023_Lin64.bin and execute the following commands:

chmod a+x FPGAs_AdaptiveSoCs_Unified_2024.1_0522_2023_Lin64.bin
./FPGAs_AdaptiveSoCs_Unified_2024.1_0522_2023_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

Choosing the components to install (for both installation methods)

• Choose to install Vitis (it will still install Vivado, Vitis, and Vitis HLS).
• For a minimal syfala installation, since only Zybo Z7 and Genesys ZU-3EG boards are currently supported, you can use the following configuration:
• [ ] Install devices for Alveo and edge acceleration platforms (uncheck)
• [ ] Install devices for Kria SOMs and Starter Kits (uncheck)
• [ ] Devices for Custom Platforms
  • [ ] SoCs
  • [x] Zynq-7000 (keep checked)
  • [x] Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC (keep checked if you're planning to use the Genesys ZU-3EG board)
  • [ ] Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC
  • [ ] 7 series (all unchecked)
  • [ ] UltraScale (all unchecked)
  • [ ] UltraScale+ (all unchecked)
  • [ ] Versal ACAP (all unchecked)
• This should bring the download size down to approximately 20/25 GB, and the installation size to approximately 110 GB.
• Agree with everything and choose a directory to install (e.g. ~/Xilinx)

• Install and wait (it may take quite a while)

• 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 $XILINX_ROOT_DIR by the directory you chose to install all the tools)

export XILINX_ROOT_DIR=$HOME/Xilinx

• If you're using fish, you can set the following configuration for example in ~/.config/fish/config.fish:

set -x XILINX_ROOT_DIR $HOME/Xilinx

• If you're using flatpak, please add the following environment variable to as well:

export XILINX_FLATPAK=TRUE

Installing Cable Drivers on Linux

cd $XILINX_ROOT_DIR/Vivado/2024.1/data/xicom/cable_drivers/lin64/install_script/install_drivers
./install_drivers
# Allow JTAG-USB connection:
sudo cp 52-xilinx-digilent-usb.rules /etc/udev/rules.d

Installing Digilent Board Files

• Download the board files from github:
• 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
• For the 2020.2 version, go to $XILINX_ROOT_DIR/Vivado/2020.2/data/boards/board_files

• For the 2022.2 version and above, go to $XILINX_ROOT_DIR/Vivado/202x.x/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
make 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.

Troubleshooting

On Archlinux, if you see an error like this one

/lib/../lib64/crti.o: file not recognized: File format not recognized

you'll have to rename the Vivado/202x.x/tps/lnx64/binutils-2.26 (Vitis will then search in the system libraries).

Vitis/Java issues

On recent systems (or with Archlinux), you might have problems compiling the host-side (ARM) application. The problem is caused by system libraries requiring newer versions of GCC than the one provided by Vitis. Replacing GCC target in Vitis' path by system GCC works:

cd $XILINX_ROOT_DIR/Vitis/202x.x/lib/lnx64.o/Default
mv libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++.so.6.old
rm -rf libstdc++.so (symlink)
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 libstdc++.so.6

Installing the 2022 patch (AMD-Xilinx toolchain v2020.2 only)

Vivado and Vitis tools that use HLS in the background are also affected by this issue. HLS tools set the ip_version in the format YYMMDDHHMM and this value is accessed as a signed integer (32-bit) that causes an overflow and generates the errors below (or something similar).

• Follow this link: https://support.xilinx.com/s/article/76960?language=en_US

• Download the file at the bottom of th page and unzip it in $XILINX_ROOT_DIR

• Run the following commands:

cd $XILINX_ROOT_DIR
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PWD/Vivado/2020.2/tps/lnx64/python-3.8.3/lib/
Vivado/2022.2/tps/lnx64/python-3.8.3/bin/python3 y2k22_patch/patch.py