The Debian virtual CAE System is a Debian Linux based CAE environment based on Intel/Altera®, Quartus®, ghdl and gtkwave. The idea is to run Linux in a virtual machine. The lab as two different boards which require different Quartus Version.
The last version that supports Cyclone II fpga architecture is Quartus 13.0sp1. That version does not support the Cyclone V architecture. All quartus versions that support Cyclone V do not support Cyclone II. So unfortunately there is not one Quartus version that supports both fpga architecutures.
Hans Färber has build three different virtual machines:
I have a preconfigured virtual machine for arm MacOS with UTM here:
The CAD software is based on Debian Linux, Quartus and other software. The software and the linux operating system are supposed to run in a virtual machine. If you do not use a virtualization environment, then you can install also directly on a native linux machine. See manual setup for manual installation hints.
There are different virtual machine environments.
VMWare® provides a commercial version VMWare Fusion for Mac OS®. This has a very good integration in MacOS and I use it with MacOS 12.7.5 (Monterey). I have a commercial version but there is a free “VMWaver Fusion” for personal use also. They have “VMWaver Workstation” for Windows but I have not tested that.
VirtualBox(r) is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. It is free. From my experience with MacOS it is not as good integrated as VMWare Fusion. If you want to use this, then download and install the the virtual machine software from https://www.virtualbox.org
UTM is based on QEMU. UTM/QEMU allows to run the amd64 based machine also on ARM based Apple Laptops. The quartus synthesis software is x86_64 based, i.e. it can not run native on the ARM laptops. I have made a debian base VM which runs everything arm native except the quartus synthesis software. Therefore that is much faster than emulating the complete machine. You must use this for Apple ARM based machines.
The following description is for ARM based Apple Laptops.
The current vcae machine is based on debian 13 (trixie). Download the debian iso from here:
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/arm64/iso-cd/debian-13.4.0-arm64-netinst.iso
Create a new virtual machine with the following settings:
When you now start the machine, you boot the “virtual” USB stick from your iso file. Select:
After reboot, you will again enter the installer because you still have the iso file mounted as USB.
After the debian installer has finished you should reboot your virtual machine. It will start in terminal mode. You need to login as user “caeuser” with password “caeuser” to finalize the installation. After login do:
cd sudo apt -y install ansible git git clone https://github.com/fredowski/vcae.git pushd ./vcae/ansible sudo ansible-playbook disable-sudo-password.yaml ansible-playbook sose26.yaml
After the installation, the machine will reboot with gui. After reboot, open a terminal and do:
sudo apt -y install gtkwave git clone https://github.com/fredowski/thavlsibuild.git pushd ./thavlsibuild ./installdependencies.sh popd wget https://tha.de/homes/beckmanf/public/openroad.tar.xz sudo tar -xJf openroad.tar.xz -C /opt echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/opt/openroad/bin' >> .bashrc echo 'export OPENROAD_EXE=/opt/openroad/bin/openroad' >> .bashrc echo 'export YOSYS_EXE=/opt/openroad/bin/yosys' >> .bashrc
That will install
These versions are required for the Altera DE1 board which is used in the digital design lab and is available in the library. This Quartus version is the last version that supports the Altera Cyclone II FPGA which is on that board. So do not install a later version if you want to use that board. The quartus software will be installed at “/opt/altera/13.0sp1”.
ghdl, yosys and the openroad tools are precompiled for arm64 on debian 13 (trixie). These precompiled binaries are produced with these scripts: https://github.com/fredowski/thavlsibuild
The installation of quartus and the window environment is done via ansible. You need to open a new terminal to have the PATH settings active.
quartus --64bit
Install git
sudo apt install git
Download the “Digitallabor” from the git server: https://caeis.etech.fh-augsburg.de/beckmanf/dtlab.git
cd mkdir projects cd projects git clone https://caeis.etech.fh-augsburg.de/beckmanf/dtlab.git
Now start a simulation
cd dtlab cd sim cd top_shift make wave
To run a synthesis
cd dtlab cd pnr cd top_simple make quartus
If you have a FPGA Board, you can download and test the design.
make prog
The repository https://github.com/fredowski/vcae contains how the
are made.
If you already have a native linux installed, then you can install quartus also via a debian package. In order to make the packages available on your installation. Copy the file "quartus.list"
deb [arch=arm64,amd64 trusted=yes lang=none] http://www.tha.de/homes/beckmanf/public/repository ./
to “/etc/apt/sources.d” and update the package repository database with
sudo cp quartus.list /etc/apt/sources.d sudo apt update
sudo apt update sudo apt install quartus13
sudo apt update sudo apt install quartus23
In order to be able to start the binaries from the terminal, the path for the binaries has to be in the PATH environment variable. For that you have to modify the .bashrc file in your home directory. Append the following snippet to the .bashrc file with vi.
# Include the ALTERA fpga software export PATH="$PATH:/opt/altera/13.0sp1/quartus/bin"
Then you have to logout and login again to make the changes active.