EEC180/181 Tutorial: Installing and Running Linux on the DE1-SoC

EEC180/181, Digital Systems Design


Overview

This tutorial describes how to install and run the Linux operating system on the DE1-SoC board using a microSD card.

Linux is an operating system that is found in a wide variety of computing products such as personal computers, servers, and mobile devices. Standard distributions of Linux include device drivers for a vast array of hardware devices. In this tutorial, we make use of some existing drivers, and also show how the user can make drivers for their own hardware.

Installation Instructions

  1. Download the DE1-SoC Linux SD card image file to your PC.
    Click https://fpgacademy.org/courses.html

  2. Scroll down the page to the Embedded Systems heading.

  3. Expand the "Recommended Hardware and Software Tools" heading.

  4. Click the link on the "DE1-SoC" line.

  5. Download the document Using Linux on DE-series Boards.

  6. Read and follow instructions from Chapter 2.3 – 2.7.5.
    Chapter 2.3 - Preparing the Linux* MicroSD* Card
    Chapter 2.4 - Setting up your DE-series Board for use with Linux
    Chapter 2.5 - Connecting your DE-series Board to a Host Computer
    Chapter 2.6 - Connecting to the Host Computer using a USB Cable
    Chapter 2.7 - Connecting to the Host Computer using a Network

  7. If issues develop with your computer's COM port that are visible in your computer's Device Manager, such as seeing 2 COM ports, use the following link to download the drivers. Install the drivers using Device Manager. The driver is specifically for the new board revision H (and later?) as the UART device provides 2 COM ports. The Using Linux on DE-series Boards document describes how to solve the possible driver issue for the previous revisions in Chapter 2.6.

    https://www.silabs.com/documents/public/software/CP210x_Windows_Drivers.zip.

    For reference only, the issue with 2 COM ports seems to be with only the newer boards, specifically Revision H. Boards Revision G and earlier, have only 1 COM port and utilize a different UART interface.

    Rev. G has Silicon labs CP2105.
    Rev. H (and before) has FTDI FT232RQ.
    Revision history: https://www.terasic.com.tw/wiki/DE1-SoC_Rev.G_to_Rev.H_Revision_List

  8. Follow instructions in Chapter 3.1 to write a "Helloworld" program.

Get Familiar with the linux command line

There are many excellent tutorials on youtube. Here is a typical one.


EEC 181 | B. Baas | ECE Dept. | UC Davis 
2025/02/20  Written
Written by Bevan Baas and Derek Li