Altera Embedded Command Shell discontinued

[Chris44442]

The Altera Embedded Command Shell has long been discontinued. And there is no need to use it either.

Simply download the socal.h and hps.h online, get the appropriate compiler with e.g. sudo apt install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi and run make in the terminal.

[nhasbun]

Seems fair.

Feel free to update/add instructions according to current Intel FPGA tools.

[Chris44442]

If you're interested, this is my solution for the configuration logic, I tried to keep things as simple as possible, a lot of functionality is missing compared to your tool. Dependencies to Altera stuff are gone. Getting rid of the byte swapping gave a nice performance boost (not that it was necessary but still).

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>

#define FPGA_MANAGER_REGS_ADR (0xFF706000)
#define FPGA_MANAGER_DATA_ADR (0xFFB90000)

const char rbf_path [32] = "sdcard/fpga.rbf"; // This must match the location of your rbf file on the device
const uint32_t cdratio = 0x3; // This must match the CD ratio of your MSEL setting, 0x0:CDRATIO of 1, 0x1:CDRATIO of 2, 0x2:CDRATIO of 4, 0x3:CDRATIO of 8

int main() {
  int devmem_file = open("/dev/mem", (O_RDWR|O_SYNC));
  uint32_t *fpga_regs = (uint32_t *)mmap(NULL, 8, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, devmem_file, FPGA_MANAGER_REGS_ADR); // FPGA manager registers
  uint32_t *fpga_data = (uint32_t *)mmap(NULL, 4, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, devmem_file, FPGA_MANAGER_DATA_ADR); // FPGA manager data

  int rbf_file = open(rbf_path, O_RDONLY);
  off_t rbf_size = lseek(rbf_file, 0, SEEK_END);
  lseek(rbf_file, 0, SEEK_SET);
  uint32_t *rbf_data = (uint32_t *)mmap(NULL, rbf_size, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, rbf_file, 0); // rbf data

  *(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs + 1) |= 0x1; //set en (HPS takes control)
  *(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs + 1) |= 0x4; //set nconfigpull (FPGA off)
  while((*(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs) & 0x7) != 0x1); //wait for status update
  *(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs + 1) &= ~0xC0; //reset cdratio
  *(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs + 1) |= cdratio << 6; //set cdratio
  *(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs + 1) &= ~0x4; //reset nconfigpull (FPGA on)
  while((*(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs) & 0x7) != 0x2); //wait for status update
  *(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs + 1) |= 0x100; //set axicfgen

  for (int i = 0; i < rbf_size / 4; i++) {
    fpga_data[0] = rbf_data[i];
  }

  while((*(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs) & 0x7) != 0x4); //wait for status update
  *(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs + 1) &= ~0x100; // reset axicfgen
  *(volatile uint32_t *)(fpga_regs + 1) &= ~0x1; // reset en (HPS releases control)

  munmap(fpga_regs, 8);
  munmap(fpga_data, 4);
  munmap(rbf_data, rbf_size);
  close(rbf_file);
  close(devmem_file);
  return 0;
}

[nhasbun]

Interesting.

From what I can see, we can get rid of socal APIs by just replacing alt_read* and alt_write* functions of the main implementation.

I would try to replace them with our own methods to keep the code readability. Sadly, I don’t have enough time to review this lately, but I will come back as soon as I can.

Could you please share your makefile in the meantime? I don’t think it makes a huge difference, but it could save me some time.

[Chris44442]

sure, although it's pretty much yours minus the altera and ssh things.

TARGET = fpga_config_tool

SRCS=$(wildcard *.c functions/*.c)
OBJECTS=$(SRCS:.c=.o)

CFLAGS = -g -std=c99 -Wall -Werror -O3
LDFLAGS = -g -std=c99 -Wall -Werror -pthread -lpthread

CROSS_COMPILE = arm-linux-gnueabi-
CC = $(CROSS_COMPILE)gcc
LD = $(CROSS_COMPILE)gcc

.PHONY: build
build: $(TARGET)

$(TARGET): $(OBJECTS)
	$(LD) $(LDFLAGS) $^ -o $@

%.o : %.c
	$(CC) $(CFLAGS) -c $< -o $@

.PHONY: clean
clean:
	rm -f $(TARGET) *.a *.o *~