freehdl  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 22, 2017, 09:33:19 pm
content: Does anyone use it?here it's buggeddownloaded the last feehdl.0.0.8.tar.gzuntarballedconfiguredcompiledinstalled (into /usr/local)tried some example in the project folder(thus, inside freehdl.0.0.8i created a folder my)Code:gvhdl -c adder.vhdlgvhdl top.vhdl adder.o ../ieee/std_logic_1164.oall compiled without errorsbut it doesn't work at all!Code:./topSorry, only default component binding is currently supported. No default binding for component adder found!UAT?tried to sort it our putting everything in the same fileCode:echo > all.vhdlcat adder.vhdl >> all.vhdlcat top.vhal >> all.vhdlgvhdl all.vhdl ../ieee/std_logic_1164.obut it fails againCode:./allterminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::bad_alloc'what(): std::bad_allocAbortedUAT?

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2017, 06:51:53 am
content: This kind of tool might be interesting when you have to use linux on a POWER9 machine (e.g. Talos-2, 2017) and ghdl can't be compiled because there is no GNAT support for IBM-POWER processors.But I can't actually understand what's wrong with freehdl and which is the state of art of this tool.The documentation is inconsistently poor

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2017, 07:26:42 am
content: sources:freehdl-0.0.8.tar.gz

author: Bruce Abbott
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2017, 08:19:14 am
content: Quote from: legacy on August 23, 2017, 07:26:42 am"The requested URL /~enaroska/freehdl-0.0.8.tar.gz was not found on this server."

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2017, 08:35:54 am
content: trythismirror.

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 23, 2017, 10:55:09 pm
content: it would be interesting having VHDL-AMS implementation

author: Canis Dirus Leidy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2017, 07:35:42 am
content: Quote from: legacy on August 23, 2017, 06:51:53 amBy the way.New ghdl versionscan be compiled with LLVM instead of GNAT.

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2017, 07:50:44 am
content: Quote from: Canis Dirus Leidy on August 24, 2017, 07:35:42 amYup, but it doesn't work as expected once compiled: e.g. all the foreign C support DOES NOT worktried v0.30..v0.33

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2017, 10:09:18 am
content: v0.29 is the only stable versiontrying the last version on the git repository ends this wayalso on HPPACode:./configure --with-llvm-configSorry, you need GNAT to build GHDLWTF

author: Bruce Abbott
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2017, 04:16:40 pm
content: Quote from: legacy on August 24, 2017, 10:09:18 amWhat did you expect? The whole concept is flawed from the beginning anyway.But this is just the way it is in software development today. Crap piled on top of crap and wrapped in more crap - all because programmers are too lazy.

author: legacy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2017, 04:49:02 pm
content: well ... I spent two days on this problem, and four hours testing GHDL from v30 to v34. Our internal linux distribution is based on Gentoo's catalyst and portage, and it happens that someone in Gentoo has recently removed GHDL from the portage for *unclear* internal reasons.Now, consider that v30 requires GNAT-v4.9, which is problematic to be built on gcc-v5 profile and consider that the last glibc makes the multi-profile pretty broken, so I spent more time in regressions on chroots and virtual machines, and at the end I have discovered that all the new GHDL versions are *ONLY* partially working: they compile vhdl, but looking at my test-benches they have some strange bad internal problem (segmentation fault without a message) with foreign-C code! It's not acceptable since is a wanted feature!I have tried different approaches without getting any good result! Debugging GCC and ADA is ... impossible for me!Thus I have to write in my report that "v30-v34 are all not acceptable", as well as I have to require a couple of Overlay-folders in the customer server to host GNAT-v4.3 and GHDL-v0.29, both OLD-VERSION out of the portage!So, at the end, I had to do a partial regression of both GNAT and GHDL, rewriting the overlay as private overlay, and adapt it to suit the new environment!It's a shitty job! Irritating if we consider that a lot of problems were related to patches that were committed 1 year ago and ... ignored (why ignored? why? EGO problem? bah ...)and to customers asking- "oh, I'd like to put 5-7K euro in a IBM-Power9 Octocores machine, can *YOU* compile GNAT or somethingHDL for linux/POWER?!?" -well ....I will have to say them that it's pretty like a basket of pine cones!I have tried, fixed, tried again, and I am ending with a simple answer to my customer: sorry, it's not possible, it doesn't work!As far as GHDL as "opensource free (no money to pay) alternative", tomorrow I have to meet a couple of managers and I will have to explain them that they have to put more money in the projectin order to buy a couple of license for ModelSim as well as two i9-workstations, since it's my personal opinion that trying to sort out problems with GHDL will end in costing more money in consultancies!edit:andGHDL is not fully thread safe. You need a modified version since the default source-code causes weird behaviour

author: Bruce Abbott
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 24, 2017, 09:44:45 pm
content: Quote from: legacy on August 24, 2017, 04:49:02 pmThat sounds like the best solution. When customers are willing to pay real money it's time to give up on 'open source' software which has no support and no guarantee of quality. If they want to port it themselves then that is their business...In my current job we are using 'open source' software to control UAVs. Right now it's just a research project so I don't mind the poor documentation and a few bugs. However we bought a new autopilot which requires different 'open source' software that was having problems on a Windows 10 tablet. I looked into recompiling from source and it was a nightmare - I figured it would take me a month just to set up the environment and get familiar with the various frameworks used (with something like this you don't make changes unless you knowexactlywhat you are doing!).