( ESNUG 305 Item 7 ) --------------------------------------------- [11/18/98]
Subject: ( ESNUG 303 #5 ) The Never-ending EDA-Should-Support-Linux Debate
> During the time Wellspring supported a Linux version of VeriWell, we had
> lots of downloads of the free version, but very few sales (which, I
> suppose, could mean something else...). So, the sales of the Windows
> version was supporting the Linux support. We could not maintain this
> drain. We had problems keeping up with the kernel, as well. So, as
> altruistic as we would like to be, we could not continue to sink resources
> into something that, albiet popular, was not generating revenue.
>
> Other companies have attempted Linux versions of their products and have
> given up. As Richard Goering pointed out, maybe there are lots of
> individual engineers who use Linux, but the CAD buyers aren't interested.
> It is a lot of effort to support another OS. And, the critical mass of
> products have to be there (simulators, synthesis, etc.). And, for a short
> time, there almost was a critical mass at the lower end (Exemplar,
> Wellspring, Fintronic, etc.). But, this is a chicken-and-egg problem,
> isn't it?
>
> So, here is what I did: I punted on Linux.
>
> - Elliot Mednick
> Wellspring Solutions, Inc. Salem, NH
From: lee@alantro.com (Lee Bradshaw)
Hi John,
It's taken me a few weeks to get around to writing this note, but I'm a
happy EDA linux user. I've been using linux at home for several years
now. Initially I was just using it as an X terminal to access the unix
systems at work. I tried veriwell a couple years ago, but there was no
waveform viewer and I dropped it like a hot potato. So I'm one of those
who downloaded the free version, emailed Elliot and then didn't purchase
anything.
Lately things have been changing. In March I changed jobs and decided to
try to use linux as my primary development machine. I evaluated speedsim
and finsim with some code that had already been developed at Alantro.
Speedsim seemed to be picky about what it would handle, and I didn't
spend much time trying to get it to handle the old design. Finsim worked
perfectly after adding libext=.v to all the `uselib statements. I've
been very happy with finsim. It sounds like polaris will soon be
available as well if people want a third choice (I hope I didn't leave
anyone out.)
Undertow is available for linux and I believe a couple of veritools'
competitors have waveform viewers available for linux or are working on
them.
We're using linux and NT machines on the desktop and linux and hp-ux
servers in the machine room. The linux machines seem to handle
displaying X apps better than NT, and they run our matlab jobs faster
than NT. Linux also handles our DHCP, DNS, email, and IP masquerading.
I seem to recall a marketing guy from exemplar saying that customers
evaluated and liked the linux version of galileo, but ended up buying
it for other platfroms because there wasn't a complete set of software
available for linux. The synthesis tool was probably the wrong one to
port first. The vendors tell me that engineers want to use linux at home
for simulations or checking waveforms. I think companies are more likely
to pay for these tools than they were for a synthesis tool without any
supporting software.
Now for a synopsys/linux question. The synopsys man pages seem to be in
ditroff format. Does anyone know how to convert these files to plain
text on linux? xditview displays the pages graphically, but I'd rather
use less (as the $PAGER) so I can search the pages. I've used the alias
below on solaris and hp-ux (both in bash).
alias synman="MANPATH=$SYNOPSYS/doc/syn/man man"
Unfortunately the linux man program I'm using doesn't convert ditroff to
text the way solaris and hp-ux do. Any suggestions?
- Lee Bradshaw
Alantro Communications
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