High-Level Synthesis for FPGA Online Courses

Compiling the Xilinx Linux kernel for Ubuntu OS has three main parts:

• Compiling the kernel
• Compiling the devicetree
• Install the kernel module on the SD-card

Compiling the kernel

1- Install ARM toolchain

[code language="c"]

apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf

[/code]

2- Download the kernel from Xilinx Github site as follows

[code language="c"]

git clone https://github.com/Xilinx/linux-xlnx.git

[/code]

3- Set environment variables

[code language="c"]

export ARCH=arm

export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf-

[/code]

4- Generate the config file

[code language="c"]

make ARCH=arm xilinx_zynq_defconfig

[/code]

5- Edit the .config file

[code language="c"]

gedit .config

[/code]

6- Change the following options

To increase the contiguous memory allocation:

[code language="c"]

CONFIG_CMA_SIZE_MBYTES=512
[/code]

to be able to allocate larger memory for hardware When set to 12, the maximum is 8MB; 13 gives 16MB, etc.

[code language="c"]

CONFIG_FORCE_MAX_ZONEORDER=15 

[/code]

7- Compile the kernel

[code language="c"]
make ARCH=arm UIMAGE_LOADADDR=0x8000 uImage
[/code]

8- Transfer the uImage to the BOOT partition in the SD-card
9- Zip the whole kernel directory and transfer that to /usr/src folder in the root partition in the SD-card (This is for writing and developing kernel modules)

Compiling the devicetree

1- Generate the zynq-zc702.dtb by

[code language="c"]
make zynq-zc702.dtb
[/code]

2- In a tmp folder convert this devicetree binary file into the source file by

[code language="c"]
dtc -I dtb -O dts -o zynq-zc702.dts  zynq-zc702.dtb
[/code]

3- Edit the zynq-zc702.dts and change the bootargs line as follows

[code language="c"]
bootargs = "console=ttyPS0,115200 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw earlyprintk rootfstype=ext4 rootwait devtmpfs.mount=0";
[/code]

Install the kernel module on the SD-card

1- Unzip the kernel

2- Get the Linux kernel version by running “uname –r”

3- Change the Linux source folder name to the Linux kernel version

4- Go to the kernel src folder and run these two commands

[code language="c"]
make modules –j2
make modules_install
[/code]

5- If it is necessary go to the /lib/module directory in the Zynq board add a software link to the Linux modules considering the Linux kernel version obtained by “uname –r”

The screenshots for two versions of Ubuntu 12.11 and 14.04 with Linux kernel 4.6.0:

High-Level Synthesis for FPGA Online Courses