I would like to solicit the opencores community for help with a new project that I am starting on sourceforge. Socgen is a opensource tool set for asic/fpga designers that provides the infrastructure needed to build designs from ip sources such as opencores. My first task is to provide help for the sysadmin tasks that are needed before you can actually build something. We all know the experience of discovering that you need a new tool, locating it and installing it with all it's dependencies. I have learned to keep detailed documentation for each task because sooner or later you will to either restore a system or clone one. It makes life a lot easier. I want to create a list of install instructions for the most popular OS's that show the exact commands needed to go from a brand new system to having a system that can build a opencores design , simulate it ,create a fpga and debug it. I can do it for the hardware and OS's that I have access to but would like to get input for other designers who use other systems. This should be along the lines of "Sysadmin for dummies". I'm a hardware guy and I don't use words like "simply" and "recompile the kernal" in the same sentance. If you have any such lists then please send them to me at z3qmtr45 gmail com and I will add them to sourceforge. You are also invited to check out the socgen project and watch it grow. I am starting small and am looking for suggestions for what works and what doesn't for chip designers. Try out the scripts and let me know how they work. Here is the list for my current system running ubuntu 9.10 to show you what I am looking for. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =================================================== Host System ASUS M2N68-AM SE2 Nforce 7025 AMD Athlon II X2 240 2 GB DDR2 PC6400 800 MHZ Memory 320 GB HD DVD-RW =================================================== Install ubuntu 9.10 from www.ubuntu.com This was tricky because the install program did not set up for a 1920x1200 monitor and you couldn't always see all the buttons System --> Administration --> Hardware Drivers activate recommended nvidia driver This fixes the monitor sudo create file etc/udev/rules.d/more 40-basic-permissions.rules add line SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev" this lets urjtag work Reboot System --> Administration --> Software Sources Set download source to any nearby server with a big pipe System --> Administration --> update Manager update System --> Administration --> Package Manager apt-get flashplugin-nonfree apt-get ubuntu-restricted-extras apt-get emacs22 apt-get subversion apt-get tkdiff apt-get build-essential apt-get fxload apt-get libftdi-dev apt-get xutils-dev apt-get bison apt-get flex apt-get texinfo apt-get libncurses5-dev apt-get gtkterm apt-get gtkwave apt-get gperf download icarus verilog from www.icarus.com and install. This could also be done from package manager but may contain an older version download urjtag from www.sourceforge.net and install download vppreproc from www.cpan.org and install download webpack from www.xilinx.com and install This is all that is needed from the root sys admin. All other tools will be installed in the local user directory ---------------------------------- Thank you for your support John Eaton