Xmos kits and linux

Technical discussions related to any XMOS development kit or reference design. Eg XK-1A, sliceKIT, etc.
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Folknology
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Xmos kits and linux

Post by Folknology »

You will probably notice from my other entries elsewhere on this forum that I am not new to Xmos and their kits its worth keeping in mind for this post.

The first board I owned was an XC-2 which I could not get working on my Mac system, I did eventually get it working on my Linux workstation. It was fairly difficult to get it working and even when I did the XIDE still had problems. I was told however that a newer tools version would fix the issues, so given I was focused on the Hardware part of projects I left the issues on hold until the "new version" was ready, truth was I had already wasted enough time just trying to build hello world! I managed to get it working enough to go through some of the ethernet and tcp/ip stiff that I needed. I also wrote up how I managed to get it working in Linux so others could get to base camp more easily.

This week, joy of joy the new tools version arrived 10.4 claiming to fix the previous issues. So I downloaded and installed the new tools bingo the old XIDE issues seem resolved except for a small problem. I now cannot get XIDE or command line tools to see either the XC-2 or my new XK1, xrun -l shows no devices. Whats more the instructions for linux are also unclear, the information I have located through manuals,tool user guides and knowledge base have all been read, tried and experimented with to no avail. I even tried using a Windows XP with the new tools to make sure that the cards haven't failed, they worked perfectly. Thus I am left feeling a just little hacked off, I am engaging in threads/emails about how to improve documentation to make it easier for new comers to Xmos, to me that seems like a sad joke at the moment given that me an experienced Xmos users can't even get hello world running!!

It leaves me with a simple question , I am completely and utterly out of my league with this Xmos stuff, are the entry points designed for rocket scientists only? Or are Xmos failing at a fundamental level with its customers?

If the former is the case I will crawl back under my rock and go and work with easier stuff like FPGAs and MCUs, if not XMOS CAN YOU PLEASE SORT THIS BASIC STUFF OUT!


:-(

regards
Al
Last edited by Folknology on Thu May 20, 2010 11:05 am, edited 4 times in total.


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leon_heller
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Post by leon_heller »

There seem to be relatively few problems with Windows, FWIW.
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Post by Folknology »

Yup I tried it on Wiindows to make sure I wasn't going completely insane and that the boards worked HOWEVER IT DOESN'T REALLY HELP ME!!

Thanks for that Leon
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leon_heller
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Post by leon_heller »

Sorry, I didn't notice that you'd tried it with Windows.

What flavour of Linux are you using? I've got Ubuntu here, I could try it with that.
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larry
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Post by larry »

Please note that the only officially supported Linux distribution is Red Hat 4.6, 32-bit and 64-bit as stated on the download page at:

http://www.xmos.com/technology/design-tools
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Post by Folknology »

Oh so is that's your get out of jail free card, we only support RedHat certain versions?

Your knowledgebase article doesn't frame it that way

Also Are you aware that RedHat is down at number 31 on the Linux popularity ratings :
http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity

Surely you support Ubuntu, which is at No1 and by far the most popular distribution of Linux?

P.S. I haven't used Redhat since 1999

regards
Al
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larry
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Post by larry »

Your knowledgebase article doesn't frame it that way
Can you please point me to this part of KB? I can't find anything that is contrary to the above statement, but if I'm wrong the KB must be corrected.
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Post by larry »

I am not really in a position to comment any further, but maybe this tip helps: a Red Hat VMware machine in background works just fine - scp your binary into it and ssh xrun. VMware player is free and very fast on Ubuntu.
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Post by Folknology »

Why does this knowledge base article exist then:
https://www.xmos.com/kbase/index.php?Vi ... EntryID=27

I understand your position Larry thanks for at least trying to help
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Post by larry »

Folknology wrote:Why does this knowledge base article exist then:
https://www.xmos.com/kbase/index.php?Vi ... EntryID=27
Thanks, Al. The text of this article does not affect the statement I've made. XMOS provide Ubuntu tips at their discretion.
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