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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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9 years ago

30-day evaluation license with Quartus Prime Lite 16.0 ??

On August 10 I installed Quartus Prime Lite Edition 16.0. Since then I ran a few University Program Tutorials on a DE1-SoC board successfully. On August 30, upon starting Quartus I got the following alert:

Info (292036): Thank you for using the Quartus Prime software 30-day evaluation. You have 10 days remaining (until Sep 09, 2016) to use the Quartus Prime software with compilation and simulation support.

Since then I am getting a similar alert, with daily progress of the countdown, every time I start Quartus. Now, according to the outline of quartus prime edition differences (https://www.altera.com/products/design-software/fpga-design/quartus-prime/download.html), I expected that:

  1. No license should be required for Quartus Prime Lite, whereby

  2. both compilation (albeit not rapid recompilation) and simulation (with ModelSim Altera Starter Edition) would be supported.

The alert in question seems to contradict both expectations. How is the actual situation? Is there some action I should do about it? Thanks in advance for any help.

5 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    9 years ago

    The apparent problem is no problem. Today I started quartus again, well after the supposed license expiration date. Happily, no license complaint showed up---the software runs nicely as it used to :)

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    9 years ago

    It appears from your description as if you somehow installed not the lite version but the full version

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    9 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    It appears from your description as if you somehow installed not the lite version but the full version

    --- Quote End ---

    Indeed, so it seems. However, I just checked the installation log, which is attached. From that I gather the following:

    1. I actually installed Quartus Prime Lite on August 12; I downloaded it on August 10, which nonetheless appears to be the starting date for the daily countdown;

    2. The log says that both Quartus Prime Help and ModelSim ASE (Free) are installed for the Altera 16.0.0.211 Lite Edition;

    3. The installation of Quartus Prime Lite 16.0.0.211 automatically started that of Quartus Prime Update 16.0.2.222 as a follow-up.

    I had a look at the quartus-16.0.2.222-linux-install.log file, produced by the aforementioned Quartus Prime Update installation, but it gives no useful information; it's much longer than the attached quartus-16.0.0.211-linux-install.log, but just because it contains a long sequence of "Unpacking files" lines. Here are its condensed contents:Log started 08/12/2016 at 19:16:38

    Preferred installation mode : unattended

    Trying to init installer in mode unattended

    Mode unattended successfully initialized

    Preparing to Install

    Preparing to Install

    Unpacking files [ 2229 times ]

    Register program

    Creating Uninstaller

    Creating uninstaller 25%

    Creating uninstaller 50%

    Creating uninstaller 75%

    Creating uninstaller 100%

    Installation completed

    Log finished 08/12/2016 at 19:22:28

    Now, perhaps the update turned my Quartus Prime Lite installation into a Quartus Prime Standard one? As a matter of fact, the license.txt file in my /opt/altera_lite/16.0/licenses directory is that of a standard edition license, and it refers to a "Checkout License", that is, a time-limited license.

    I am puzzled, because, if the automatic update installs a time-limited license, then I see no way to escape that...
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    9 years ago

    A couple of hours ago I was wondering: "perhaps the update turned my Quartus Prime Lite installation into a Quartus Prime Standard one?". Now, I archived the projects I've been running so far, and the heading of the archive reports shows that the automatic Quartus Prime Update 16.0.2.222 is not the culprit. For example:

    Archive Project report for reaction_tester

    Sun Sep 4 10:58:07 2016

    Quartus Prime Version 16.0.2 Build 222 07/20/2016 SJ Lite Edition

    So, the installation really is a Quartus Prime Lite one, yet affected by an inappropriate, hanging alert about license expiration... Any other idea?
  • JSchr18's avatar
    JSchr18
    Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
    6 years ago

    They just want you to buy the software ... shady marketing apparently. Thanks for sharing your experience I had the same surprise today with the lite software.