OVERVIEW

Xilinx has a number of tutorials available for instruction. The general approach will be to suggest a selected subset of those to advance toward Linux platform creation. Recently, the thrust has been toward Board System Builder tutorials as an entry point. Rather than repeat that information or take another view, the user is urged to perform certain available, updated, and well-maintained preliminary tutorials.

A number of incorrect tutorials exist on the web: often they target a commercial board, e.g. Memec, which may not be similar enough to be useful for learning, occasionally they are incorrect or are based upon an outdated version of EDK, or generally target non-Linux applications.

EDK Tutorial Sequence

The fastest approach is a three-step process: first, understand the overall tool flow with a basic design, next, learn something about a Virtex Pro design and advanced techninques such as exporting/importing to ISE, and finally, perform a board-specific build and download.

1. After obtaining and setting up ISE and EDK, perform the Xilinx built-in tutorial:
   • Start EDK by double-clicking the desktop icon (Windows) or typing "xps" on the command line (Linux).
   • Navigate to the Help item on the top toolbar, and select EDK Help.

   • In the browser window, select Documents, then Platform Studio User Guide.

   • After the PDF guide opens, go to Creating a Basic Hardware System in XPS and work through the entire chapter targeting your board and accepting the defaults in most cases.

2. Now that basic operation has been covered, a more detailed project is undertaken.

   • Again in the Platform Studio User Guide go to a different chapter: Creating a PowerPC Design

     Note the the BSB board targeted is from an outside vendor and is not a Xilinx product, thus the tutorial will have to be modified to be useful on the ML series boards:

     • To be posted later...repeat of Xilinx tutorial for ML300

     • To be posted later...repeat of Xilinx tutorial for ML310

   • Work through the tutorial; the application code is useful background exposure, but be aware that for the Linux system in the JumpStart tutorial, all applictions are compiled from within the OS and do not require linker scripts.

3. Finally, access and perform the detailed tutorial project specific to your board:
   • ML300 JumpStart

   • ML310 JumpStart

   • AFX1152 JumpStart

   • XUP JumpStart

Any of the above projects should provide sufficient background for creating your own design based upon Linux. Advanced topics will include a HOWTO for connecting an accelerator to the OS, adding and removing IP, developing driver code, and inclusion of DCR interrupts.

TODO List...

(installation of IP and Chipscope)

(versions of LD_KERNEL_ASSUME)

(dealing with "corrupted" mhs in EDK)

(dealing with deprecated cores in EDK)