How To Install arachne-pnr on Ubuntu 18.04

In this tutorial we learn how to install arachne-pnr on Ubuntu 18.04. arachne-pnr is Place and route tool for iCE40 family FPGAs

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install arachne-pnr on Ubuntu 18.04.

What is arachne-pnr

arachne-pnr is:

Arachne-pnr implements the place and route step of the hardware compilation process for FPGAs. It accepts as input a technology-mapped netlist in BLIF format, as output by the Yosys synthesis suite for example. It currently targets the Lattice Semiconductor iCE40 family of FPGAs. Its output is a textual bitstream representation for assembly by the IceStorm icepack command. The output of icepack is a binary bitstream which can be uploaded to a hardware device.

Together, Yosys, arachne-pnr and IceStorm provide an fully open-source Verilog-to-bistream tool chain for iCE40 1K and 8K FPGA development.

There are three methods to install arachne-pnr on Ubuntu 18.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install arachne-pnr Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install arachne-pnr using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install arachne-pnr

Install arachne-pnr Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install arachne-pnr using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install arachne-pnr

Install arachne-pnr Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install arachne-pnr using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install arachne-pnr

How To Uninstall arachne-pnr on Ubuntu 18.04

To uninstall only the arachne-pnr package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove arachne-pnr

Uninstall arachne-pnr And Its Dependencies

To uninstall arachne-pnr and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 18.04, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove arachne-pnr

Remove arachne-pnr Configurations and Data

To remove arachne-pnr configuration and data from Ubuntu 18.04 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge arachne-pnr

Remove arachne-pnr configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove arachne-pnr configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge arachne-pnr

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install arachne-pnr package on Ubuntu 18.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.