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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?

#231

Post by account42 »

tekchip wrote: post #88
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…

The replies here are horrifying. Yes corporations are not people. But they are made up of people. I'd imagine most here work in them yourselves. Often less well paid support staff who have to read, and try to respond, to such terrible behavior. As one of those support people myself I can assure you it takes a toll.

The entire point of support staff is to stand between unhappy customers and the rest of the company. If they don't think their pay reflects the responsibilities that that entails then they should ask for a raise, not make excuses to ignore customers that the company has failed to serve.

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

#232

Post by boomskats »

vitally3643 wrote: post #222
boomskats wrote: post #80

Trying to read between the lines, here are my lazy sunday morning guesses at what might be going on here: 1. The Xilinx team are pushing back on the increasing number of things they have to support. Silver lining, maybe this means they're being asked to work on a new product that will require redistribution of headcount (like maybe another NPU ) 1.1. Their Linux expertise is lacking / stretched across multiple teams…

None of that makes any sense because they still support linux , just not on the free tier. They aren't saving themselves any time or effort because linux is still supported for paying users.

Yeah, apart from there is more to supporting a product than just compiling a binary.

Case in point, the HN post you're commenting on is a link to their support forum. Search for _anything_ there, and this the pinned article that appears on top of every results page (from feb 2024):

> Is your Operating System supported by ISE/Vivado tools? Assistance and support won’t be provided for software and IP installed on unsupported OS!

> Note: Technical Support and assistance will be provided ONLY for Software and IP installed on supported Operating System!

> It is strongly suggested to check if the OS you are working with, is one of the supported operating system for ISE/Vivado tools!

*There have been many questions where users are trying to install or run into issues with using an unsupported OS for ISE/Vivado tools.*

> Assistance and support won’t be provided for issues observed on unsupported operating system!

> For the list of supported OSs for ISE 14.7, please check page #7 of UG631: https://docs.xilinx.com/v/u/en-US/irn

Platform support != customer support. Search that forum and you'll see. I imagine their paying customers are rejoicing at this decision.

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

#233

Post by _humenberger »

KallDrexx wrote: post #141
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…

FWIW I'm using Yosis for my Ice40 Lattice FPGA purely because their Linux support is bad. Getting a free hobby license requires emailing them with MAC addresses (which means I have to do that for my desktop, laptop, and again for any future machine I may get). Then getting the tools to actually run on Linux seemed to be impossible that I just gave up. It's not clear that I have the Yosys and open source options for m…

https://github.com/openxc7

Does support all FPGAs from the Series7 (Spartan7, Artix7, Kintex7, Zynq70xx)

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

#234

Post by _humenberger »

jwrallie wrote: post #11

I’m working in education and will change to other vendors in the near future. That means all my students will do so as well. Windows cannot provide feature parity for workloads that require cross compiling, AMD could at least support RHEL like the old days.

A wide list of FPGA boards is supported by the open source FPGA eco system.

Lattice, Xilinx, Gowin, Renesas, Colognechip,

Generate a bitstream with our online tool. https://caas.symbioticeda.com/

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

#235

Post by bfrog »

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…

Xilinx has often thought of the software as the special sauce that sets them apart it seems like.

At this point its a net negative. Nothing like a massive bloated Vivado that now requires a slow spywareOS to run its rotting carcass of gigabytes (100's) of java.

About the only good thing Vivado does is fail to synthesize correctly... oh wait that's a mystery bug that I and many others have run into. And impossible to understand why.

FPGA tooling desperately needs open source tooling like C needed GCC.

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

#236

Post by _humenberger »

rustybolt wrote: post #82

This sucks. I was working on a video course on building CPUs on an FPGA that uses Vivado (because I am somewhat familiar with the ecosystem and have dev boards with Artix FPGAs). I am still contemplating my options. I can still use Vivado 2025, I guess, but I am not sure that is the right direction. What are realistic alternatives for Vivado? (Taking into account the availability of supported affordable entry-level d…

Switch to the open source FPGA tool chain?

https://github.com/openxc7

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

#237

Post by elevation »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #71

Charging for Vivado has always struck me as ridiculous. It's a software dongle that enables Xilinx hardware, and the hardware is how they make money. Give Vivado away for free and support it on Linux and Mac, and you'll sell 10x as many chips.

> you'll sell 10x as many chips

The cost of the tooling is probably blocking a few sales, but the biggest blocker for FPGA sales is price of the parts themselves. FPGAs make the most sense where absolute quantities are low and the customer is not cost-sensitive.

As soon as you get volume, ASIC wins out. And cost sensitive applications can almost always make do with a CPU that has the correct IO configuration. For FPGAs to win at scale they'd need to be significantly cheaper.

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

#238

Post by wormius »

account42 wrote: post #229
wormius wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it's directed at you or not, as an employee it's still stressful AF and these people are like getting paid kinda shit wages to put up with people all day long. I'm not arguing about whether or not this particular instance contained "uncivil comments" (do the mods have the ability there to delete the comments if they are uncivil?)... But day in day out, on a mass level, it's such a goddamned drag, even if it i…

> Whether it's directed at you or not, as an employee it's still stressful AF and these people are like getting paid kinda shit wages to put up with people all day long. Then don't take the job.

Not everyone has the luxury you do.

Can you imagine if everyone who had to put up with this bullshit for shit wages, did what you said. Good luck with services.

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

#239

Post by musicale »

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

    You answer all the questions we do not ask.
    Please answer the primary question this issue is about.
 
    Why is Linux not supported in the BASIC tier?
seems about right

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

#240

Post by musicale »

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

"Well, some guy in marketing figured that we could make more money by charging more money, especially for things that we didn't previously charge money for. This was validated by ChatGPT as the kind of brilliant insight that qualifies someone for an MBA. You may take some solace in the fact that we somehow managed to preserve a free version for broke idiots who use Windows."
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