Introduction

Setting up a Development Environment

This guide highlights the installation and setup process for setting up a local copy of the Cynthion source code for development.

Prerequisites

• Python v3.9, or later.

• A working FPGA toolchain. We only officially support a toolchain composed of the Project Trellis ECP5 tools, the yosys synthesis suite, and the NextPNR place-and-route tool. You can obtain the latest binary distribution of this software from the oss-cad-suite-build project.

• A working Rust development environment if you want to develop firmware for Cynthion’s SoC bitstream.

• A RISC-V GNU Compiler Toolchain if you want to use gdb for SoC firmware debugging over JTAG.

Installation

For development you’ll need a local copy of the Cynthion repository:

Linux / macOS

Use git to clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/greatscottgadgets/cynthion.git

Windows

Please perform the following steps to enable support for symlinks before attempting to clone the repository on Windows:

1. Open the “For developers” page in System settings and enable Developer Mode.

2. Restart your computer.

3. Open the Group Policy editor: gpedit.msc

4. Navigate to Computer Configuration → Windows Settings → Security Settings → Local Policies → User Rights Assignment → Create symbolic links and check that you have user permission to create symbolic links.

5. Restart your computer.

6. Configure git to enable symbolic links on Windows:

   git config --global core.symlinks true
   

Use git to clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/greatscottgadgets/cynthion.git

Note

To install the cynthion Python package and allow for in-place editing of the sources you can use the pip --editable command:

# change to the 'cynthion' Python package directory
cd cynthion/python/

# install the 'cynthion' Python package, including dependencies required for gateware development
pip install --editable .