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.

• Altera DE1 board (Digitaltechnik, Entwurf digitaler Systeme 1) with Cyclone II FPGA
• NOT IN SS21!!! Altera DE1 SOC (Master VLSI, Master COM) with Cyclone V FPGA

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:

• Altera DE1 Virtual Machine with Quartus 13.0sp1 and ghdl/gtkwave for Digitaltechnik, Digitaltechnik Praktikum and Entwurf digitaler Systeme 1
• Altera DE1 Virtual Machine with Quartus, Modelsim and Matlab for Master Courses
• Altera DE1 SoC board: SoC Virtual Machine (used in previous years for Master courses)

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 M1/M2 based Apple Laptops. I have tested this on a Intel based MacBook Pro. It is slower than VMWare.

Download the ISO file for Debian 12.5.0 preconfigured setup. You can download the image from here:

http:www.tha.de/homes/beckmanf/public/vcae-debian-12.5.0-1.iso

This depends on the virtualization environment that you use. The iso contains a preconfigured debian installer which will install a machine with a user “caeuser” with password “caeuser”. The ISO file represents a CD like in a CDROM and will install a new virtual system. The things you need to configure in your virtualization environment are the hard disk size, the memory and the number of processors that your virtual machine shall have.

For all virtual machines choose “Conventional BIOS” and not “UEFI Boot”.

Create a new virtual machine with minimum 30GB hard disk size. The hard disk will result in a file on the host operating system (Here MacOs) but the file size on the host will be dynamic, i.e. it will depend on the actual usage in the virtual machine. So you can also configure 120GB. Choose minimum 2GB ram or 50% of your RAM in your computer. Choose 50% of the processor cores on your computer.

to be done

Make sure you choose “BIOS” boot mode and not “UEFI”. After the debian installer has finished you have to virtually eject the ISO file.

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
./go.sh

That will install

• Altera Quartus II Web Edition Version 13.0sp1 (13.0.1 build 232)
• GHDL + gtkwave
• LXQt + Lightdm Window environment

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”. The installation script “go.sh” installs the remaining software vi “ansible”.

quartus

Install git

sudo apt install git

Download the “Digitallabor” from the git server: https://gitlab.elektrotechnik.hs-augsburg.de/beckmanf/dtlab

cd
mkdir projects
cd projects
git clone https://gitlab.elektrotechnik.hs-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

• Debian preconfigured iso
• The quartus debian packages
• The ansible install scripts
• A vagrant setup

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"

quartus.list

deb [arch=i386,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

Quartus 13.0sp1 is a i386 architecture, so you need to add the i386 architecture to your system setup:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

and then

sudo apt update
sudo apt install quartus13:i386

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.

.bashrc

# 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.