Nios2 Linux on Altera FPGA Development Boards

Warning

Support for the A10GX carrier is discontinued and will not be supported in future releases. The last supported HDL release is hdl_2021_r1.

Pre-built images

Pre-built Linux images are available for the following hardware configurations:

Carrier	FMC Card
Arria 10 GX	EVAL-ADRV9008-9009, ADRV9371, EVAL-AD-FMCDAQ2-EBZ, EVAL-AD-FMCDAQ3-EBZ
Arria V GT	AD-FMCJESDADC1-EBZ

On Windows with Quartus II installed, run the provided program.bat script to program the board. This will flash the FPGA bitfile and Linux ELF image, then launch a Nios2 terminal displaying the Linux console output.

IIO Oscilloscope remote

Install IIO Oscilloscope on a host PC and connect remotely to the target platform:

Open Settings > Connect
Select Manual and enter the URI: ip:<board-ip>
Press Refresh then Connect

To determine the board IP, log in on the Nios2 terminal with user root and password analog, then run ifconfig.

Building Linux

Using a script

~$

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/analogdevicesinc/wiki-scripts/main/linux/build_nios2_kernel_image.sh && \
chmod +x build_nios2_kernel_image.sh && \
./build_nios2_kernel_image.sh

The script will:

Clone the ADI kernel repository
Download the Nios2 GCC toolchain
Compile the kernel
Export the zImage and device tree files

Step-by-step

Clone the ADI Linux kernel:

~$

git clone https://github.com/analogdevicesinc/linux.git \
            --no-single-branch --depth=10 \
            -- linux

Checkout the release branch:

~/linux$

git checkout origin/2021_R1 -b 2021_R1

Download the root filesystem:

~/linux$

wget https://swdownloads.analog.com/cse/nios2/rootfs/rootfs.cpio.gz

Set up the cross-compile environment:

~$

export ARCH=nios2

~$

export CROSS_COMPILE=/path/to/nios2-toolchain/bin/nios2-linux-gnu-

Important

Replace /path/to/nios2-toolchain with the actual path to your Nios2 GNU toolchain installation.

Configure and build:

~/linux$

make adi_nios2_defconfig

Copy the appropriate device tree for your hardware:

Carrier + FMC	Device Tree
A10GX + DAQ2	`a10gx_daq2.dts`
A10GX + DAQ3	`a10gx_daq3.dts`
A5GT + FMCJESDADC1	`a5gt_fmcjesdadc1.dts`

Build the kernel:

~/linux$

make zImage