I'm probably the newest member here -- so "Hi" to all you experienced folks!

I am a software professional (25 years), 2 years of AVR microcontroller work, and know basic electronics, and have done a small FPGA project for work using Libero in VHDL >with Actel IGLOO parts. So I have a feel for how to do a FPGA project. I use Linux at home and will be assembling a
FPGA development environment soon, hopefully an >open-source one as mentioned in the HowTo.

But for now, I think I need much more background information, preferably in book form, to help give form to my idea for an FPGA core.

I hope some of you will recommend some English-language texts for me to study to gain basic knowledge of FPGA coding. Verilog seems most popular on this site so I'd be >happy also to learn of the best Verilog references.

Thank you!

JLon

Books? forget hardcopy, You spend $80-100 usd for something that's out of date by the time it is published.

There is a ton of stuff online for free. 90 % of it is crap but once you know enough to figure out what is good you will be able to contribute to the cause and help everyone out.

The following link is a little dated but is really a quality job. It is a good place to start


http://www.automotivedesignline.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201803310

I would concur with putting the web tutorials above books with regards to getting up to speed.
there are few leading vendors that provide free software and tutorials. Two of the larger vendors, Xilinx and Altera offer free downloads of their development tools (windows and linux) and also a third party HDL simulator (Model-Sim). Using these tools, you can learn the design flow, and knock out real devices for professional use.
You mentioned using linux, but not the distro. If per-chance you're using fedora, there's a full 'free' electronics lab (FEL) available. If using a different distro, theres an option download the full fedora12-FEL spin as a live DVD. The live DVD will give you a chance to play and learn with the open-source packages before commiting to installing them.
-mal