Getting started with FOSS for FPGAs

The Free/Libre and Open-Source Software (FOSS/FLOSS) ecosystem for digital hardware design (FPGA/ASIC), is growing and can be difficult to know the alternatives and be up-to-date. Our aim is to provide a gentle introduction to the main development tools, in a common place.

Available presentations

• FOSS for FPGA development
• cocotb tutorial

Talks

• 2023-09-16 - 12º Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre
  • FOSS for FPGA development
  • cocotb tutorial
• 2021-08-29 - Joint ICTP, SAIFR and UNESP School on Systems-on-Chip, Embedded Microcontrollers and their Applications in Research and Industry [ slides ]
• 2021-05-18 - Ciclo de charlas sobre la EDU-CIAA-FPGA [ slides, video (Spanish) ]
• 2021-02-10 - Joint ICTP-IAEA School on FPGA-based SoC and its Applications for Nuclear and Related Instrumentation [ slides, video (English) ]

Requisites to recreate the presentation and run examples locally

To create the presentation

Install reveal-md:

apt install npm
npm install -g reveal-md

Then create the presentation:

cd slides
make

And open _build/index.html with a web browser.

To run examples

NOTE: this instructions are for x86_64/amd64 architectures of Ubuntu (>= 16.04) and Debian (>= 9). Other alternatives or more details at Install Docker Engine.

Docker installation

As root:

apt install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl gnupg-agent software-properties-common
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/$(lsb_release -is | tr [:upper:] [:lower:])/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/$(lsb_release -is | tr [:upper:] [:lower:]) $(lsb_release -cs) stable"
apt update
apt install -y docker-ce docker-ce-cli containerd.io

NOTE: or with the alternative curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com/ | sh -.

Docker post-installation

As root:

groupadd docker
usermod -aG docker <YOUR_USER>

As user:

newgrp docker
docker version
docker run hello-world

More info at Post-installation steps for Linux