Forum Discussion

36 Replies

Show More
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    16 years ago

    Hi, I am new to Nios II development. I saw that Quartus II v. 8.0 does include an MMU, so that an actual Linux can in principle be run. Does anyone have a suitable Linux boot disk image or ZIP file that could be loaded onto, say, an SD card, so it could be used with a suitable development board (such as the Terasic DE3 board) to allow a Nios II design on the board to boot up into Linux straight off of the SD card's filesystem? Or barring this, can you point me at the next best thing to get into a "real" seeming Linux environment on the Nios II? The DE3 also has 1GB DDR2 RAM. Thanks very much.

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

    I suppose you need to build the Linux distribution yourself as described in the Wiki.

    AFAIK, the only ready-made Linux test distribution is the one I once did for NEEK (no-MMU). loadable from SD-card with the Altera Application Loader.

    -Michael
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    16 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    Did you read this ...?

    AFAIK, the only other Nios Linux distributions that currently is supported can be bought from WindRiver.

    -Michael

    --- Quote End ---

    No, thank you, like I said, I am just getting started with Nios development, and so I hadn't seen that Wiki yet. I have a couple of follow-up questions.

    1. I have seen material here and on the Wiki about both Linux and uClinux. What are the pros/cons of uClinux vs. regular Linux on Nios II? Is the regular Linux the only one that leverages the MMU capability?

    2. What are the easiest ways that one can interact interactively with a Linux/uClinux OS running on a Nios 2 design in a Stratix III on a simple dev board such as the DE3? E.g., can one of the USB ports be used together with a simple text-terminal app on the PC to provide an old-fashioned terminal interface (VT100-like)? Or, for more direct interaction, is there any free IP & drivers for handling USB keyboard/mouse input, and for driving at least CGA text output (80x25 chars) to a monitor through an external VGA jack wired up to some of the general-purpose IO pin headers?

    3. To provide network capabilities to the dev board, is there any free IP (& device drivers) available to implement, say, controller ICs for RJ-45 Ethernet ports, if those were wired into some GPIO pins?
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    16 years ago

    Please read more in the Wiki and and search in the messages in this forum. Only then post questions as regular Forim threads and not in this "sticky" thread.

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

    hi,anyone know how to run uclinux on DE3 step by step ,would you help me?

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

    Any one can guide me how to load uClinux into Nios 2 for DE2 board.