Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

adaptivesupport.amd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 254 posts

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

#191

Post by throwaway85825 »

alphabeta3r56 wrote: post #54
Drakim wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Its just numbers only for rich. For poor ir can be the differnce between employability and not. In general, I believe that non-free tools like this are effective violence against poor nations since they trap those societies in unskilled sectors.

Poor nations just pirate.

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

#192

Post by throwaway85825 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #57
alphabeta3r56 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is such an own goal. You want students using your code to get them to use it in job. They have learnt nothing from cuda

They still have a system for sponsoring students (through professors). They're not entirely crazy. It does make me wonder how much money they must be losing on these chips that they've turned this desperate for licensing costs.

Usually it's just some idiot manager trying to juice quarterly numbers and get promoted. Then they jump to another company and the damage takes years to kick in.

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

#193

Post by throwaway85825 »

jwrallie wrote: post #187
ua709 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just of out of curiosity, what parts of the University Program don't appeal to you? https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/university-program.html You can get free licenses and donated hardware through this program.

I didn’t like that you are not supporting Linux in your free tier. Edit: if it is not clear, the way you treat the community is one way I evaluate my decisions to support or not your company when I suggest using your products to others, students or not.

Education is only valuable if there's a market for those skills and its hard to have a healthy market without a strong community.

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

#194

Post by Dylan16807 »

charcircuit wrote: post #189
Dylan16807 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not "on the Linux community" to bribe a company out of releasing hardware in a broken state of usability.

It's no more a bribe than having to pay money to buy the latest C++ standard when implementing a C++ compiler. The reality is that companies pay each other for partnerships all of the time. There is value to AMD for keeping this documentation secret and there is value for having control over what design tools exist for them. It makes sense that AMD would want to be compensated in this case and would not want to do wo…

> It's no more a bribe than having to pay money to buy the latest C++ standard when implementing a C++ compiler.

The C++ standard group didn't just sell me a piece of hardware that only runs C++, in a world where no free C++ compilers exist.

That analogy isn't even close.

> There is value to AMD for keeping this documentation secret

It's a value that doesn't deserve respect.

> It makes sense that AMD would want to be compensated in this case and would not want to do work for free which could undermine their business.

Their business is selling the hardware. Their money should come from selling the hardware.

I'm not demanding a free full-featured development environment. I think they should have to document the hardware and maybe provide a basic compiler. If they want to sell something beyond that, no problem.

> The hardware is not in a broken state of usability since you can still buy usable design software.

And if you don't?

It's a fixable broken state with enough money, but it's still a broken state.

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

#195

Post by ua709 »

jwrallie wrote: post #187
ua709 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just of out of curiosity, what parts of the University Program don't appeal to you? https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/university-program.html You can get free licenses and donated hardware through this program.

I didn’t like that you are not supporting Linux in your free tier. Edit: if it is not clear, the way you treat the community is one way I evaluate my decisions to support or not your company when I suggest using your products to others, students or not.

Fair enough but I don’t work for AMD.

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

#197

Post by charcircuit »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #194
charcircuit wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no more a bribe than having to pay money to buy the latest C++ standard when implementing a C++ compiler. The reality is that companies pay each other for partnerships all of the time. There is value to AMD for keeping this documentation secret and there is value for having control over what design tools exist for them. It makes sense that AMD would want to be compensated in this case and would not want to do wo…

> It's no more a bribe than having to pay money to buy the latest C++ standard when implementing a C++ compiler. The C++ standard group didn't just sell me a piece of hardware that only runs C++, in a world where no free C++ compilers exist. That analogy isn't even close. > There is value to AMD for keeping this documentation secret It's a value that doesn't deserve respect. > It makes sense that AMD would want to be…

>That analogy isn't even close.

Then how about the instruction manuals for the processors themselves. It's really not that different. People spend a lot of time and resources building something and compiling information and you are demanding to get it for free.

>It's a value that doesn't deserve respect.

It does deserve respect as a lot of people put in work in creating it and creating a successful product. If you think it's not that much effort to do then find someone to make their own FPGA and documentation for it.

>Their business is selling the hardware. Their money should come from selling the hardware.

It is rare for a business to be so 1 dimensional. Businesses have many income streams. Even for the same product. Take for example the iPhone. Apple gets income from people buying the device. Income from companies for letting them sell things in the App Store. Income from Google for setting Google as the default search provider.

>And if you don't?

If you refuse to get a compatible computer for the free software to flash the chips then you can't flash the chips for free. The chips are still fully functional and if you sold them to someone else they could program them.

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

#198

Post by charcircuit »

mzajc wrote: post #105
charcircuit wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

AMD dropped support for Linux on the free plan, not the other way around. Nor is this a Linux problem, because they still allow paid users to run the software on Linux. As far as what's evident from the support thread goes, this is the closest to a justification given: > AMD expectation is that the BASIC tier licensing level is used for simple, entry‑level needs. While more advanced, production-based workflows are al…

If Microsoft didn't have a good operating system it wouldn't have such a dominant market share for the free tier of Vivado. If the Linux community actually properly competed and gained 50% market share then support would not have been dropped. You can't blame companies giving up on Linux on the company itself. Eventually the Linux community will need to take responsibility for their failures.

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

#199

Post by imglorp »

londons_explore wrote: post #16
jkubic wrote: post #8

I’ve spent several hundred thousand on Xilinx FPGAs yet they nickel and dime me for licenses. It’s not the cost that’s a problem—-it’s the hassle of making a PO for a license to set up new computers, set up CI, hiring new teammates, setting up for interns/students. Xilinx has continued to go downhill since their acquisition by AMD.. it used to feel like it was run by engineers who understood their customers, now it s…

Tbh, I think they should just charge for the chips and keep the software free.

Similarly, AMD wonders why they can't have a bigger piece of that sweet GPU market. Maybe Nvidia is worth 5 trillion because they have a deep ecosystem (CUDA) and community and there's certainly not charging or impeding developers from using it, charging only for the hardware.

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

#200

Post by rescbr »

pocksuppet wrote: post #126
lukan wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most don't want to work on something big, with a high risk of being sued into oblivion once released?

It's a pretty low risk if you don't put your identity out there. I know there's at least one Git forge that's a Tor onion service. Even on GitHub 99% of the time this ends with a DMCA takedown of the repository. You should probably put it on a pseudonymous alt account but you don't actually need to use a Tor onion service. You could also get someone else to put their name on the web hosting and so on. Don't know who…

> You don't see people being like "I reverse-engineered Vivado but I won't give you a copy because I could get sued."

Eh, not Vivado, but back in my undergrad days I RE/cracked a tool used in a very specific niche and definitely kept my mouth shut as the developers could a) do some investigation and then sue me, a student without any legal budget to spare; b) improve copy protection on future releases; and/or c) prevent my access to future versions of the tool that I was using for my thesis.

On other threads about Denuvo you always see somebody saying they've got the chops but the risk to their livelihoods is not worth it.

I think there are a lot of (now) hobbyist reverse-engineers that learned the craft back in the day and kept the knowledge for themselves.

Post reply on HN