WebPack on Linux

You have to install the compatibility libraries, search for compat-libstdc in yumex.

I use ISE under FreeBSD-6.0/i386 (32bit) without any major problems. The only things that doesn't work out of the box is launching pdf's and transfering .bit to physical chip. And these things are not that hard to fix.

I downloaded the complete .sh file. And then extracted the contents, and worked it from there. ktrace was helpful =)

I had a similar problem getting WebPack to run on Linux. Here is my report to the Home Brew Robotics Club on the problem. You may want to get the libstd++.so.5 file from a Fedora Core

TO: Home Brew Robotics Club Silicon Valley Linux Users Group

WHAT: This note briefly describes how to get the Xilinx FPGA development tools to work on Linux

To learn FPGA design I followed in the steps of Chris Palmer of the HBRobotics Club and ordered a Digilent "Spartan-3 Board" for $99. You can order one at

Download the Xilinx free WebPACK 8.1i development software from the Xilinx web site. You have to register, but it is not too intrusive. The download is almost 900MB. Xilinx provides an IDE that looks like a C and Tcl/Tk wrapper around a bunch of command line tools. Instead of trying to keep up with the latest kernels and libraries, Xilinx just puts every library and executable it needs into the download and makes the tool completely self-contained. They missed libXm.so.3 and I had to copy it from a Fedora Core 3 system. (They built the IDE on Red Hat Enterprise Edition 3). For the record, I use Mandriva 2006 but it does not seem to matter too much which distribution you use.

The key to getting the Xilinx tools to work on Linux is to follow the directions at

As root, install the software with "sh WebPACK_81i_SFD.sh". Run the software as root and select HELP->Software_Updates to get the latest updates from the Xilinx web site.

The quick start is in Xilinx/doc/usenglish/books/docs/qst.pdf. Open this with xpdf or evince and follow the directions to create, build, and download a four bit counter. I made a typo error when editing the design and the tools wouldn't let me proceed until I fixed the error.

I am just learning Verilog / VHDL but I'd be happy to help if you want help getting to your first download of an FPGA circuit.

There is no reason to get libstd++.so.5 from FC3, it's in the FC5 compatibility libraries.

Thank you for your useful hints.

The good news is, that I am running Linux in a virtual machine, and that I am able to chose whatever system is most compatible with the Xilinx tools. After trying this and that, I found that WebPACK installs on Debian 3.1r2 installs without too much problems.

I seem to have a problem with windrv, I will need to investigate what the symptoms of this really are. Again, thank you for your useful hints and it seems that the solution to the windrv problem is already described as well.

Best regards, Felix