My name is Sven Andersson and I
work as a consultant in embedded
system design, implemented in ASIC
and FPGA.
In my spare time I write this blog
and I hope it will inspire others to
learn more about this fantastic field.
I live in Stockholm Sweden and have
my own company
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After installing Ubuntu in our virtual machine it is time to do some fixing. The first thing I always do after installing a new Linux OS is to upgrade the software. Ubuntu 13.10 was released more than four month ago. During that time a number of software updates have taken place. Let's open a terminal window.
In the terminal window type the following command:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
Changing the desktop
Ubuntu 13.10 comes with the Unity desktop. I prefer the Gnome Classic desktop and there is an easy way to get the Gnome desktop back. In an terminal window type the following commands:
Next time we login we can select which desktop to use by clicking the symbol in the right upper corner.
We select GNOME Flashback.
We got the familiar menus back.
Cobra Command Tool
Cobra Command Tool is a smart terminal program which I develop more than 20 years ago. I still use it as an replacement for the standard terminal program. Here is a description on how to install it in Ubuntu and here is the user guide.
Guest additions
The VirtualBox Guest Additions are designed to be installed inside a virtual machine after the guest operating system has been installed. They consist of device drivers and system applications that optimize the guest operating system for better performance and usability. For more information see the user manual chapter 4. Here is a description on how to install them.
From the VirtualBox Devices menu select "Insert Guest Additions CD image". After a few seconds this window pops up.
Click the Cancel button. The CD image has been mounted under the /media directory. To install the guest additions execute the following commands:
cd /mount/"user name"/VBOXADDITIONS_... sudo sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
Don't forget to unmount the guest additions CD image when finished.
Setting up an ssh server
We will use ssh (secure shell) to remotely login to our guest system from our host or vice versa. For that reason we have to setup a ssh server in our Ubuntu system. Install the following packages to enable the ssh server:
Xilinx allways tells us that they don't support Ubuntu, but I have heard rumors that they plan to do it. Until then we have to do a few tweaks to the Ubuntu installation to get it to work. Here are the tweaks I have done. We may find more tweaks along the way.
Changing the default shell
Ubuntu uses dash as the default shell and RedHat uses bash. Some of the scripts Xilinx is using are written for the bash shell. Use the following command to find out the default shell:
ls -l /bin/sh
Use the following command to change the default shell to bash:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash
Select No and Enter.
Adding gmake
GNU make is called gmake in the RedHat installation and make in the Ubuntu installation. Execute the following command to add gmake in Ubuntu.
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/make /usr/bin/gmake
Installing Java
We need Java for running Vivado. (This problem has been fixed in Vivado 2015.1) Use this command to install openJDK Java:
sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre
Non-english keyboard
For all of us using non-english keyboards add the following lines to .bashrc (This problem has been fixed in Vivado 2015.1)
To easily move files between or virtual machine and host computer we can setup shared folders. Click Settings in VirtualBox and select Shared Folders.
Specify a folder path to a folder on the host computer that we want to share with the virtual machine and give it a name (UbuntuShare). The folder will show up on the virtual machine in the directory: /media/sf_UbuntuShare. Mark the Auto-mount tick box to mount the shared folder automatically. To give write permissions to this directory we have to add us to the linux group vboxsf.
->sudo adduser svenand vboxsf
More tweaks to follow
When we find out more things during this project they will be added here. But now I think it is time to install the Vivado design suite from Xilinx.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc., that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, and client software. Dropbox allows users to create a special folder on each of their computers, which Dropbox then synchronizes so that it appears to be the same folder (with the same contents) regardless of which computer is used to view it. Files placed in this folder also are accessible through a website and mobile phone applications. Use this command to install Dropbox:
->sudo apt-get install nautilus-dropbox
When the installation has finished we have to start Dropbox:
->dropbox start
I already have a Dropbox account so I can just login. If you are new to Dropbox you have to setup a new account.
Click Finish to finish the installation: Dropbox is now ready to be used.
Access Dropbox from the right side top menu:
^
GIT
GITis a distributed revision control and source code management (SCM) system with an emphasis on speed. Every Git working directory is a full-fledged repository with complete history and full version tracking capabilities, not dependent on network access or a central server. When we download software from Internet we will access a number of GIT hubs. To install GIT support in Ubuntu execute the following command:
