Using Wally on Linux Mint 21.3

[PietDelaney]

I'm trying to use Wally on Linux Mint 21.3. The tools install scrip is failing though its trying to use the Ubuntu release that Linux Mint was likely derived from. I suspect it's a packaging issue as Linux Mint avoids a less attractive packaging facility.

piet@piet-Precision-7920-Tower:~/riscv/cvw/bin$ $WALLY/bin/wally-distro-check.sh
################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################Checking System Requirements and Configuring Installation
################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################
**For Ubuntu family distros, the Wally install script has only been tested on standard Ubuntu. Your distro
is Linux Mint wally-tool-chain-install.21.3. The regular Ubuntu install will be attempted, but there may be issues.
Detected information
Distribution: Linux Mint 21.3
Version: 21.3 (Virginia)**
piet@piet-Precision-7920-Tower:~/riscv/cvw/bin$ 

The wally-tool-chain-install.sh script fails to install python3.9-venv thought it installs using the apt-get install command manually.

Note, selecting 'libncursesw5' for glob 'libncurses*'
Note, selecting 'libncursesw6' for glob 'libncurses*'
Note, selecting 'libncurses5' for glob 'libncurses*'
Note, selecting 'libncurses6' for glob 'libncurses*'
E: Unable to locate package python3.9-venv
**E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'python3.9-venv'
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'python3.9-venv'**
+++ error
+++ echo -e '\033[91mError: system packages installation failed'
Error: system packages installation failed
+++ echo -e 'Error on line 125 with command sudo $PACKAGE_MANAGER install -y "${GENERAL_PACKAGES[@]}" "${GNU_PACKAGES[@]}" "${QEMU_PACKAGES[@]}" "${SPE: Couldn't find any package by glob 'python3.9-venv'
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'python3.9-venv'IKE_PACKAGES[@]}" "${VERILATOR_PACKAGES[@]}" "${BUILDROOT_PACKAGES[@]}" "${OTHER_PACKAGES[@]}" "${VIVADO_PACKAGES[@]}"\033[0m'
Error on line 125 with command sudo $PACKAGE_MANAGER install -y "${GENERAL_PACKAGES[@]}" "${GNU_PACKAGES[@]}" "${QEMU_PACKAGES[@]}" "${SPIKE_PACKAGES[@]}" "${VERILATOR_PACKAGES[@]}" "${BUILDROOT_PACKAGES[@]}" "${OTHER_PACKAGES[@]}" "${VIVADO_PACKAGES[@]}"
+++ '[' -e '/opt/riscv/logs/system packages.log' ']'
+++ exit 1
piet@piet-Precision-7920-Tower:~/riscv/cvw/bin

[jordancarlin]

I believe the issue you are running into is with the version detection. Linux Mint 21 is based on Ubuntu 22.04, but the script will be detecting its version as 21 and trying to use the Ubuntu 20.04 installation steps.

I was testing this out earlier today with Linux Mint 22 (which is based on Ubuntu 24.04), and have an updated version of the script that handles version detection correctly for Ubuntu derivatives. Unfortunately, the installation still fails when it gets to building riscv-gnu-toolchain, seemingly because of a library issue that I'm still trying to find in the log.

I can push the updated version detection logic for now and that might be sufficient for Linux Mint 21. Not sure if you will run into the same riscv-gnu-toolchain issue that I'm seeing on Linux Mint 22.

[jordancarlin]

@PietDelaney Updated version detection is in PR #1188. Let me know if that works and if not please attach the log file for the step that fails.

[PietDelaney]

I copied the complete filewally-distro-check.sh
[bin/wally-distro-check.sh](#1188 commits/66a4655cb9663ed0c52a0969812ef29211b20a7a#diff-05bc9266a500f88d5dc2a33f93a9fa7ece95031fdf7caf46d1a41dc3f2c4b88c)

I didn't know/recall how to pull just the commit

Tool installation is running now, much further than without this fix.

[jordancarlin]

Glad to hear that was able to get it started. I’ll be curious to see if you run into the same issues I encountered on Linux Mint 22 with riscv-gnu-toolchain or if it will be able to get through that part successfully.

[PietDelaney]

Tool installation progressing,
Off hand it looks great:

ate > stamp-libstdc++convenience;
test -f config.h || (rm -f stamp-h1 && make stamp-h1)
/usr/bin/install -c -m 644 ../.././gcc/gcc/errors.h /opt/riscv/lib/gcc/riscv64-unknown-elf/14.2.0/plugin/include/errors.h
mkdir -p stamps/ && touch stamps/build-gcc-newlib-stage2
RISC-V GNU Toolchain successfully installed/updated!

[jordancarlin]

That’s further than it got with Linux Mint 22 and is definitely a good sign. The one that’s remaining that has proved to be the most difficult is buildroot, which is at the very end. I guess there’s something else going on with 22 that I’ll have to look into.

[PietDelaney]

uildroot successfully installed and Linux testvectors created!
###############################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################
###############################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################
Downloading Site Setup Script
###############################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################
###############################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################################
2024-12-09 22:33:51 URL:https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openhwgroup/cvw/main/site-setup.sh [3595/3595] -> "site-setup.sh" [1]
2024-12-09 22:33:51 URL:https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openhwgroup/cvw/main/site-setup.csh [2371/2371] -> "site-setup.csh" [1]
Site setup script successfully downloaded!
Make sure to edit the environment variables in /opt/riscv/site-setup.sh (or .csh) to point to your installation of EDA tools and licensce files.

WALLY INSTALLATION SUCCESSFUL!!!

piet@piet-Precision-7920-Tower:~/riscv/cvw/bin$ cat /etc/issue
Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia \n \l

Looks great. ToolChain installs fine on Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia :)

I'll try a build next.

[jordancarlin]

Glad to hear it worked!

[PietDelaney]

Thanks. Building now, so far its great. Using all 24 CPUs.

If everything works Id like to try build a FPGA. I'll likely need to buy a large one.
Immediate problem is the students in Yuri's Verilog Sunday classes at Hacker Mojo are not all University Students.
So most of us dont qualify to get the FPGA tools so far supported by Wally.
Hope we can make progress on both the FPGA tools and FPGAs supported.

Perhaps a CVW discussion on this is reasonable.

Build with -j 40 appears to have completed.
Trying again without -j 40 to make sure there weren't any errors.

[PietDelaney]

Second build without -j40 also succeeded.

Anything else to check?

[jordancarlin]

Steps 9 and 10 of the getting started guide in the README are a good place to start. They have you first run a simple simulation in Verilator and spike to ensure the tools built correctly and then our regression script to make sure all the tests are working right. You can skip make in step 10 since you’ve already done that part.

[PietDelaney]

Pulled the commit and as expected things are fine on Linux mint.

I tried step 9 and liked the simulation. I liked the option of debugging with gdb via openocd and will give it a try, I think.
Would be nice if the libraries were able to be built with -g so gdb could show us where the source files are.

At Tensilica I used gdb via jtag on FPGAs.

[jordancarlin]

@rosethompson is our expert on all things FPGA

[PietDelaney]

Thanks Jordan. I'll try contacting him.

We just finished Yuri's Verilog class. I was recommending the Wally framework to one of the students for his interest in a Beagle Bone/board FPGA board. We were discussing how JTAG is implemented for the target Linux running on the FPGA. He's using a JTAG dongle. We were wondering if the USB signals can be brought out of the boards and the ft2232 JTAG serialization can be done in the FPGA.

-piet

[rosethompson]

Hi Pete. We have a feature branch (pull request #883) with a partial implementation of debug specification which provide a JTAG interface. Unfortunately we don't have anyone actively working on JTAG or the debug extension at this time. It's biggest limitation is lack of testing and now about 6 months out of date with the main branch. But it was partially tested on the ArtyA7 with a USB JTAG interface. That being said you should be able to leverage the TAP controller and other JTAG hardware to build arbitrary scan chains and connect to any JTAG controller such as the ft2232.

[PietDelaney]

I like the ft2232, I added it to the Tensilica ML605 FPGA dev board and got it working 100x faster by using an asynchronous protocol, similar to TCP ACKs and OpenOCD.

I bought a ML605 on ebay a few days ago for just $100 but Im afraid the software to program it isn't available from AMD at a low price.

The ML605 has twice the cells that the Arty A7 100 has. Guess it best to just stick to the Arty A7 for now.

Nice to hear JTAG support on the Arty A7 was started. I was afraid JTag RTL wouldn't be able to access the other port on the FT2232 chip. Maybe after I get the Arty A7 boodtng Linux from the flash memory I'm building I can look further into it. Maybe Im too new to your wally git code to make any headway but at lease I've got experience on the ML605 SMP Linux board.

Thanks Rose.

-piet