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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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15 years ago

Stratix IV devkit recommendations?

We're currently looking to purchase some DE4 board for education/research purposes. We're a little decided on which range of development kits to go for so we were hoping we could get some feedback from forum members :) We actually don't need to use any special features like transceivers or connectivity options like SATA.. really just a big fast device, good memory options, and (hopefully) software + reference designs that we can easily extend! Though PCI-E would be nice.

The DE4 is probably at the top of our list. However we want to use Linux, would anyone be able to comment on Linux support in terms of drivers/tools. Does the PCI-E connection work out-of-the box?

Any other vendors/kits we should look at? In the past we've found Altera to provide limited support (e.g. non-updated reference designs for the latest versions of Quartus) is that still the case?

Thanks!

1 Reply

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    15 years ago

    There is S4GX PCIe devkit as Altera product. As you may know, it comes with PCIe edge connector, so it is ready to use with PCIe interface.

    The device on this board is either 230 or 530. If you do not need PCIe, then you can go with S4E devkit, which does not have transcivers on the device, but it is huge device.

    Both S4GX and S4E devkit, you can put Emb-Linux on it. I put Linux on the S4GX board while ago. Basically, the requirements for the emb-Linux is more than 8MByte of off chip memory and ideally, CFI-Flash, and ethernet. Both boards have them.

    I do not think Altera is supporting Linux, but you can find most of necessary information to build Linux at here or at Altera wiki.