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Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

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Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#61

Post by pyrale »

izacus wrote: post #52
izacus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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More like the notion of seeing different treatment between OSes. No one likes being punished for a choice that shouldn't be any of the selling party's business. That's especially true in the Linux community, which was the target of Microsoft's anticompetitive policies for decades.

That's just like when macOS users got mad when they learned they were targeted by marketing schemes to sell them more expensive stuff [1].

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2012/06/26/155792590/orbitz-targets-mac-...

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#62

Post by ginko »

kevmo314 wrote: post #7
fleventynine wrote: post #4

I wonder how good LLM agents are at reverse engineering FPGA bitstreams... I want a robust open-source ecosystem where anyone can take my hardware projects and modify them without needing to deal with licensing friction.

The difficult part is the place and route algorithm, not the bitstream. The proprietary ones already take quite a long time to solve: I regularly have 12-24h runs. Perhaps an open source one could do better? But it's not quite as straightforward as reverse engineering a proprietary bitstream.

I have to admit that I haven't looked too closely into this but my understanding is that place & route is essentially an NP hard optimization problem. Would it be possible to translate this into a SAT problem and solve it with a state of the art SAT solver?

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#63

Post by robinsonb5 »

izacus wrote: post #52
izacus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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The notion of being expected to pay for software that was formerly free - when Windows users aren't expected to bear those same costs - does indeed piss me off.

If I were actually using Xilinx FPGAs I'd be more pissed off. Luckily the projects that interest me currently are based around Intel, Lattice and Gowin devices.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#64

Post by RobotToaster »

Drakim wrote: post #40
adrian_b wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people, including the management of most big corporations, claim that verbal insults, which do no actual physical harm to anyone, are "unacceptable abusive behavior", while the actions that do physical harm to others, e.g. by tricking or forcing them to pay an extra part of their hard-earned money for things that should not have been paid, because they had already been paid in another form, instead of using that…

I agree with your point (that AMD does a lot more harm than what they are indignant about) but not the way you go there. If emotional abusive behavior is not "physical harm" because it's just emotions, then financial abusive behavior is not "physical harm" either because it's just numbers. When you consider what incredible harm being emotionally unwell can lead to, I don't think it deserves to be dismissed. AMD is cl…

It would be more accurate to say that what AMD is doing is causing material harm, while a few mean words directed towards an anonymous megacorp are not.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#66

Post by DoctorOW »

akarambir wrote: post #2

The official replies are addressing questions that nobody has asked. The main issue is why Linux support is being removed from the Basic tier while Windows is still allowed. To grow the ecosystem, AMD needs more people working on their hardware. Restricting Linux will only alienates students, hobbyists, and devs who want to adopt AMD tech. - From long term AMD user

> For your specific question: Why is Linux not supported in the BASIC tier?

> This is AMD's marketing decision.

> Kind Regards,

> Anatoli Curran,

> Xilinx/AMD Forum Moderator

I mean, nobody in that forum necessarily knows why. It just came from above.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#68

Post by bborud »

mort96 wrote: post #33
akarambir wrote: post #2

The official replies are addressing questions that nobody has asked. The main issue is why Linux support is being removed from the Basic tier while Windows is still allowed. To grow the ecosystem, AMD needs more people working on their hardware. Restricting Linux will only alienates students, hobbyists, and devs who want to adopt AMD tech. - From long term AMD user

The official replies started off by addressing ... the "unacceptable abusive behavior towards AMD". The most important thing here is obviously to ask people not to use such hurtful words as "disgraceful" towards poor little AMD... Answering the actual question seems not a high priority

Yes, this struck me as rather odd and unprofessional too. Do you really want to depend on a company where customer facing representatives can’t handle people being upset? Especially when to company has just announced changes that limit what users can do with their products.

The older I get the less I want to deal with companies that act like primadonnas and the technologies they make. This is also why I don’t do phone apps: your market access is 100% controlled by two companies that can wipe out your business overnight.

Imagine having to work with these people professionally. With real money involved. While probably not as high risk as mobile development, their customer representatives seem like real primadonnas. You’ll be happier without these people in your life.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#69

Post by officialchicken »

nmaludy wrote: post #24

We've had good experiences with Lattice parts. Their software tools are free for all of their basic chips. They only charge for licensing when you use the higher end SKUs with SerDes. Example, you can use and develop on an ECP5 or Certus using their free license, but then you need a paid license to work on ECP5-5G or CertusPro chips. They're not perfect, but they're better to work with than Xilinx. Also, their datash…

> Give Lattice a look for your next project.

Sometime after the heat death of the universe, maybe. IME raising prices during development is their modus operandi.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#70

Post by matheusmoreira »

izacus wrote: post #20
akarambir wrote: post #2

The official replies are addressing questions that nobody has asked. The main issue is why Linux support is being removed from the Basic tier while Windows is still allowed. To grow the ecosystem, AMD needs more people working on their hardware. Restricting Linux will only alienates students, hobbyists, and devs who want to adopt AMD tech. - From long term AMD user

[flagged]

Nah. Why do Windows users get it for free while I have to pay because I'm an "advanced" user?

I'm not rewarding that. I'll reward companies like Valve instead.

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