Vitis is the tool allow platform design for data acceleration card for Alevo series data center acceleration cards or embeded design for embedded Arm processors.

Notice that, Vitis’s linux edition only can do the design for data center acceleration card, while the windows edition only can do design for embeded system. The software requires high CPU and memory performance, thus it might not be ideal to do Vitis platform design on your own laptop.

Below show the step-by-step software installation on your local Linux Desktop.

Hardware preparation

Designing system scale hardware is costly but worthwhile. Below is one possible setting of installation:

• Intel i7 14700k, I9 14900K CPU.
• SSD hard drive with at least 4TB, heatsink and latest PCIe.
• Motherboard ASUS ProArt Z790, please note that the DP input is INPUT to the motherboard. Use Type-C or HDMI for the display purpose. Error x 2.
• DDR5 RAM ideally 96GB (2 x 48GB), we tried an 2 x 32GB +2 x 48GB version. You may consider the ones higher MegaTransfers per second.
• CPU cooler, idealy using water cooling solution, since air cooler may limit avaliable RAM slots. Be mindful over Case, water cooling might not fit within the case comfortablly. A possible air cooler is Noctua NH-U12A.
• High Power supply with Fan. You may go up to 1000W if needed. Please also be aware of the dimension.
• Large Computer case with additional PWM Fans, we use Lian Li LancooL 216 Black Steel/Tempered Glass ATX Mid Tower Computer Case,2X 160 mm PWM Fans Included (Non-RGB)- LANCOOL 216X Black.

The above settings were provided by Zhenyu Xu from Dr. Wei’s NEXT Lab research group at Clemson University.

Operation system preparation

You are not expected to run it over Virtual Machine. Thus, you need to install Linux in your desktop. We use Ubuntu 22.04 LTS for convinence, which is avaliable in https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop. Different from Virtual Machine, you need to use tool like Rufs which is avaliable here https://rufus.ie/en to make your USB flash drive as a bootstrable drive. The following video below shows how you use it:

WARNING, if you used provided motherboard, please check your BIOS version, IT HAVE TO BE 0816 [preferred] OR 0904 X86 to be fully support 22.04 installation. Otherwise, it will return out of memory.

Version 0904 has an issue with SSD port labeled as C is not usable with Intel i7 14700k CPU. Later BIOS versions may fix this issue. 0816 version has good support for Intel i7 13700k CPU. You can install Ubuntu 24.04 with later BIOS (like 1801), but it cannot support Xilinx toolchain at this moment. The steps for the installation is avaliable https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1012815/. You can download the driver from https://www.asus.com/us/motherboards-components/motherboards/proart/proart-z790-creator-wifi/helpdesk_bios?model2Name=ProArt-Z790-CREATOR-WIFI And you can refresh your BIOS following the method in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAP7DQOSgU.

Vitis unified design download and installation

The Vitis is can be download from https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/vitis.html

Once you signin, we have two option, Single File Download (SFD) or using web installer.

Single File Download (SFD) [Recommend]

The download speed will probably faster than using web installer. Extract the files from the Xilinx_.tar.gz archive:

tar -xvf Xilinx_<version>.tar.gz

Run the installer:

sudo ./xsetup

Use web installer

Download the .bin file, you need to change your directory to your download path, you need to make the .bin file executable and start the running by

chmod +x <installer>.bin && sudo ./<installer>.bin

Known issues

If you stopped generating installed device, you need to install the following, and restart the installation after completion.

sudo apt install libtinfo5 libncurses5

XRT download and build

XRT is avaliable at https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/alveo.html in xrt_.deb or xrt_.rpm file based on your operation system. While, it might fail.

A better way is to build it from github, which can be followed using the build instruction is avaliable at https://xilinx.github.io/XRT/master/html/build.html and https://docs.xilinx.com/r/en-US/ug1301-getting-started-guide-alveo-accelerator-cards/XRT-and-Deployment-Package-Installation-Procedures-on-Ubuntu

git clone https://github.com/Xilinx/XRT.git
sudo <XRT>/src/runtime_src/tools/scripts/xrtdeps.sh
cd <XRT>/build
source /tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/settings64.sh
./build.sh
cd /Release 
sudo apt install ./xrt*.deb

Known issues

If you encounter the error: cmake: error while loading shared libraries: libidn.so.11: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory From https://askubuntu.com/questions/1477217/cant-install-libidn11-on-my-ubuntu-22-04, you need to:

sudo apt update
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/libi/libidn/libidn11_1.33-2.2ubuntu2_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./libidn11_1.33-2.2ubuntu2_amd64.deb

If you happen to have two cmake version within your XILINX library after load the Vitis. With the issue as cmake version issue: CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:4 (cmake_minimum_required): CMake 3.5.0 or higher is required. You are running version 3.3.2 You can check by

which cmake

which may possibly returns: /tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/tps/lnx64/cmake-3.3.2/bin/cmake

Go to the directory of “/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/tps/lnx64”, and see if there is a newer cmake there. If so, copy that directory, and the ENTIRE PATH environment variable by first copy the current PATH variable, and then :

export PATH=/tools/Xilinx/Vitis_HLS/2023.1/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Model_Composer/2023.1/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/gnu/microblaze/lin/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/gnu/arm/lin/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/gnu/microblaze/linux_toolchain/lin64_le/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/gnu/aarch32/lin/gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/gnu/aarch32/lin/gcc-arm-none-eabi/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/gnu/aarch64/lin/aarch64-linux/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/gnu/aarch64/lin/aarch64-none/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/gnu/armr5/lin/gcc-arm-none-eabi/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/tps/lnx64/cmake-3.24.2/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/aietools/bin:/tools/Xilinx/Vivado/2023.1/bin:/tools/Xilinx/DocNav:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin:/snap/bin

If you face the error:

cmake: error while loading shared libraries: libssl.so.10: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

You need to follow the link https://support.xilinx.com/s/question/0D54U00006RtdwzSAB/cmake-version-upgrade-can-not-find-library?language=en_US by entering:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/<YOUR PATH>/Vitis/2022.2/tps/lnx64/cmake-3.21.4/libs/Ubuntu:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Other errors: ./build.sh: line 5: grep: command not found ./build.sh: line 5: awk: command not found ./build.sh: line 5: tr: command not found

sudo apt install grep
sudo apt-get install gawk

Uninstall XRT

sudo apt remove xrt

Platform data download

Similar but different from Vivado, you need to download the Alveo data accelearation card from https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/alveo.html by choosing the appropriate software and operating system.

Apart from download the .tar.gz files for your desired platform. We only do U200, U250, U280, and untar the tarball, install using the following command:

source /tools/Xilinx/Vitis/2023.1/settings64.sh
sudo apt install ./*.deb

You also need to download the Development Target Platform. You need to download and install the desired platform one by one.