Installing Digilent Adept 2 on Linux Workstations

So in my previous post I walk through the somewhat long, boring, but important steps, for installing the Xilinx ISE WebPack software. This is the software used for creating hardware designs, compiling them, optimizing them, routing them, and eventually it spits out a '.bit' file.


So in theory, once you've compiled a design, or have a .bit file for your particular Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or Complex Programmable Logic Device (CPLD), you'll be ready to load it onto your device of choice! To do these we use Digilent Adept 2.


Digilent Adept 2: The Adept Runtime & Utilities consists of the shared libraries, firmware images, and configuration files necessary to communicate with Digilent's devices.

1. Goto: http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?Prod=ADEPT2 and download the Run time software for your Linux architecture (32 or 64 bit)
2. Decompress the downloaded file, this requires gzip
1. eg. “gzip -d digilent.adept.runtime_2.8.2-i686.tar.gz”
3. Untar the the decompressed file, this requires tar
1. eg. “tar -xvf digilent.adept.runtime_2.8.2-i686.tar”
4. Enter the directory which contains the run time installer
5. *Execute the install.sh script, this will require superuser privileges (speak with your system administrator)
1. eg. “sudo ./install.sh”
2. Press [enter], press [Enter]

*As of this writing the Digilent Adept 2 runtime install.sh encounters an error on 3.x.x kernels that use udev. It should be fixed soon.

1. Goto: http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?Prod=ADEPT2 and downlaod the Utilities software for your Linux architecture(32 or 64 bit)
2. Decompress the downloaded file, this requires gzip
1. eg. “gzip -d digilent.adept.utilities_2.1.1-i686.tar.gz”
3. Untar the decompressed file, this requires tar
1. eg. “tar -xvf digilent.adept.utilities_2.1.1-i686.tar”
4. Enter the directory which contains the utilities installer
5. Execute the install.sh script, this will require superuser privileges (speak with your system administrator)
1. eg. “sudo ./install.sh”
2. Press [enter], press [Enter]

I use a Digilent Basys 2 Development Board because it's cheap enough for me to afford, I also have a C-MOD which I have not used yet but will likely utilize at sometime this year. If you've done both the ISE WebPack install and the Adept 2 installation you should now have the necessary software to load new designs to devices of your choice!