Installing Vivado on NixOS

Introduction #

I hate Vivado but I am forced to use it at university. It is notoriously complicated to set up on Linux and using NixOS has caused me extra difficulties.

In this post I will detail how to install Vivado 2019.2 on nixos-unstable. Other combinations of versions may or may not work.

Installing #

Download Vivado HLx 2019.2: All OS installer Single-File Download from the Xilinx website.

Extract it using

cd ~/Downloads && tar xzvf Xilinx_Vivado_2019.2_1106_2127.tar.gz

In the extracted directory create a shell.nix file with the following content:

# shell.nix
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { } }:
(pkgs.buildFHSEnv {
  name = "vivado-env";
  targetPkgs = pkgs: (
 with pkgs; [
   ncurses5
   zlib libuuid
   bash coreutils zlib stdenv.cc.cc
   xorg.libXext xorg.libX11 xorg.libXrender xorg.libXtst
   xorg.libXi xorg.libXft xorg.libxcb xorg.libxcb
   freetype fontconfig glib gtk2 gtk3
   graphviz gcc unzip nettools
 ]
  );
  runScript = ''
 env LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib \
   C_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include \
   CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include \
   CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib \
   CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include \
   bash
  '';
}).env

Run nix-shell.
Run ./xsetup -b ConfigGen. Select Vivado HL WebPACK.
Edit the install config:
```
nvim ~/.Xilinx/install_config.txt
```
It seems advisable to change Destination to a path that we have read/write permissions for.
I used <home directory>/opt/Xilinx.

Install Vivado with

./xsetup \
-a XilinxEULA,3rdPartyEULA,WebTalkTerms \
-b Install \
-c $HOME/.Xilinx/install_config.txt

See Notes on libtinfo.so.5. Run

ln -s /usr/lib/libtinfo.so.5 ~/opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2019.2/lib/lnx64.o/libtinfo.so.5

You can now launch Vivado with
```
~/opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2019.2/bin/vivado
```

Desktop Entry #

Create a shell.nix in ~/opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2019.2/bin/ with the following content

# shell.nix
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { } }:
(pkgs.buildFHSEnv {
  name = "vivado-env";
  targetPkgs = pkgs: (
 with pkgs; [
   ncurses5
   zlib libuuid
   bash coreutils zlib stdenv.cc.cc
   xorg.libXext xorg.libX11 xorg.libXrender xorg.libXtst
   xorg.libXi xorg.libXft xorg.libxcb xorg.libxcb
   freetype fontconfig glib gtk2 gtk3
   graphviz gcc unzip nettools
 ]
  );
  runScript = ''
 env LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib \
   C_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include \
   CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include \
   CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib \
   CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include \
   $HOME/opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2019.2/bin/vivado
  '';
}).env

Open the desktop entry for Vivado:

nvim .local/share/applications/Vivado\ 2019.2_*.desktop

Change the line starting with Exec to

Exec=nix-shell <home directory>/opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2019.2/bin/shell.nix

Notes on `libtinfo.so.5` #

If step 8. is omitted then running Vivado throws the following error:

application-specific initialization failed: couldn't load file "librdi_commontasks.so":
libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

This seems to be a common issue and is usually solved by installing libtinfo-dev or symlinking /usr/lib/libtinfo.so.6 to /usr/lib/libtinfo.so.5. However this is not the solution in this case because libtinfo.so.5 is actually present at the reasonable locations (/usr/lib, /lib, …) but Vivado refuses to find it for some unknown reason. The only workaround I found is symlinking/copying libtinfo.so.5 to <install dir>/Xilinx/Vivado/2019.2/lib/lnx64.o

Solution #

ln -s /usr/lib/libtinfo.so.5 ~/opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2019.2/lib/lnx64.o/libtinfo.so.5

Non-solution 1 #

I cannot even install libtinfo.

nix-shell -p libtinfo
# ...
ERROR: noBrokenSymlinks: the symlink /nix/store/l3sa8c1f03l84zkz6afbzgya3ad4jcmi-ncurses-6.5-dev/lib/pkgconfig/tic.pc points to a missing target: /nix/store/l3sa8c1f03l84zkz6afbzgya3ad4jcmi-ncurses-6.5-dev/lib/pkgconfig/ncurses.pc
ERROR: noBrokenSymlinks: the symlink /nix/store/l3sa8c1f03l84zkz6afbzgya3ad4jcmi-ncurses-6.5-dev/lib/pkgconfig/tinfo.pc points to a missing target: /nix/store/l3sa8c1f03l84zkz6afbzgya3ad4jcmi-ncurses-6.5-dev/lib/pkgconfig/ncurses.pc
ERROR: noBrokenSymlinks: found 2 dangling symlinks, 0 reflexive symlinks and 0 unreadable symlinks

Non-solution 2 #

Creating a symlink from /usr/lib/libtinfo.so.6 to /usr/lib/libtinfo.so.5 in an FHSEnv is not trivial at all because /usr is read-only. Therefore we have to use a package override so that the symlink is already created in the package.

# shell.nix
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { } }:
(
let
  custom-ncurses = pkgs.ncurses.overrideAttrs (finalAttrs: previousAttrs:  {
    postFixup = previousAttrs.postFixup + ''
        ln -svf $out/lib/libtinfo.so.6 $out/lib/libtinfo.so.5
    '';
  });
in
  pkgs.buildFHSEnv {
    name = "vivado-env";
    targetPkgs = pkgs: (
      with pkgs; [
        custom-ncurses
        zlib libuuid
        bash coreutils zlib stdenv.cc.cc
        xorg.libXext xorg.libX11 xorg.libXrender xorg.libXtst
        xorg.libXi xorg.libXft xorg.libxcb xorg.libxcb
        freetype fontconfig glib gtk2 gtk3
        graphviz gcc unzip nettools
      ]
    );
    runScript = ''
      env LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib \
        C_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include \
        CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include \
        CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib \
        CMAKE_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include \
        $HOME/opt/Xilinx/Vivado/2019.2/bin/vivado
    '';
  }
).env

However as mentioned this still does not solve the problem.

Uninstalling #

WARNING: This might be overkill for you. Read it carefully and use common sense!

rm -rf \
~/opt/Xilinx \
~/.Xilinx \
~/.config/menus/applications-merged/Xilinx\ Design\ Tools.menu \
~/.local/share/applications/*Vivado* \
~/.local/share/applications/*Xilinx* \
~/.local/share/applications/Uninstall\ 2019.2* \
~/.local/share/applications/Add\ Design\ Tools\ or\ Devices\ 2019.2* \
~/.local/share/applications/Documentation\ Navigator* \
~/.local/share/applications/Uninstall\ DocNav*

Resources #

This post is largely based on kotatsuyaki’s excellent article Xilinx Vivado on NixOS.

Also check out Bruce Röttgers’ post on installing Vivado on Ubuntu.

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