ZedBoard development

Introduction

The ZedBoard development platform includes a Xilinx Zynq FPGA coupled with many base peripherals required for testing systems (DDR, Ethernet communication, etc.)

As I use it as a base development platform, I generally install an Embedded Linux that will run on the ARM Cortex A9 dual-core which is embedded in the Zynq chip. Using this, I'm able to communicate with the board using SSH communication. This software part is then able to manage the reconfigurable fabric of the FPGA and hardware modules instantiated on it.

ZedBoard Embedded Linux Building Guide

As I frequently build Linux kernels and surrounding software elements for this platform, I designed scripts to automate compilation of Linux kernel, boot loader, and all other base software required to boot the board.

From there, I wrote a guide describing the whole building operation from scratch to a running Embedded Linux system. This guide is not intended to address each and every need you could have in building such a system. It rather presents a step-by-step way of buiding a basic system if you have no idea how to do it. From there, I expect you'll be able to build your own customized system after reading this guide.

Moreover, I provide scripts along with this documentation that can automate the building process. You can use scripts to hide the process details, or use them as a base to write your own scripts automating your system building.

Latest version of the guide specifically targets Vivado 2016.4. Earlier version of the guide targeting 2014.2 is provided in the Legacy section, at the bottom of this page. For any other Vivado versions, you'll be unable to use the scripts: just follow the manual procedure by adapting to your Vivado version. Adaptation will require a little knowledge of tools (such as git to check which tag to use), but should otherwise be quite easy.

Do not hesitate to contact me for any help, or to provide feedback on potential issues you went through.

File download

Archive containing both the guide and scripts (.tar.bz2 archive)

Guide only (PDF)

License

Scripts

Scripts are licensed under the GNU GPL V2 license

User guide

Installing Embedded Linux on ZedBoard by Clément Foucher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Legacy (Vivado 2015.2)

Latest version of the guide is designed for Vivado 2016.4. If you use previous version of Vivado you can download this earlier version of the guide:

Vivado 2015.2: Guide only; Full archive.