• Xilinx XC3S400A-4FTG256C Spartan-3A FPGA
• Four LEDs
• Four CapSense™ switches
• I2C temperature sensor
• Two 6-pin expansion headers
• 20 x 2, 0.1-inch user I/O header
• 32 Mb Spansion® MirrorBit® NOR GL Parallel Flash
• 128 Mb Spansion MirrorBit SPI FL Serial Flash
• USB-UART bridge
• I2C port
• SPI and BPI configuration
• Xilinx JTAG interface
• FPGA configuration via PSoC®

The flash is not updated through a JTAG, but through the USB interface. On Windows the AVprog is used, which can run in Wine and therefore usable on Linux. It is however easier to use the tool called ASTriAEKiPro 1.2.1.

Download a newest .deb file from http://sourceforge.net/projects/fpgalibre/files/ASTriAEKiPro/ and install it with:
sudo dpkg -i astriaekipro_1.2.1-2_i386.deb

Using ASTriAEKiPro
Get a bit file for the kit, either from the CD in the package or from the Avnet Design Resource Center, go to the Avnet Spartan-3A page and click on "Support files and downloads", login and get the "Default Serial Flash Factory Image" file.

To write to the SPI flash use:
astriaekipro -w Spartan3AEval_FPGA_Firmware_V10.bit

To verify:
astriaekipro -y Spartan3AEval_FPGA_Firmware_V10.bit

ASTriAEKiPro can furthermore be used as a terminal, which makes it possible to use the USB as serial interface for a MicroBlace etc.:
astriaekipro -t

Which will give you something like:

*******************************************************************
*                    _____                                        *
*                   /     \                                       *
*                  /____   \____                                  *
*                 / \===\   \==/                                  *
*                /___\===\___\/  AVNET                            *
*                     \======/   ENGINEERING                      *
*                      \====/    SERVICES                         *
*                                                                 *
*******************************************************************
*              Spartan 3A Eval Demo V1.0 5/2008                   *
*******************************************************************
* Current Device Status:                                          *
*                                                                 *
*   EF1:  DEACTIVATED                                             *
*   EF2:  DEACTIVATED                                             *
*   EF3:  DEACTIVATED                                             *
*   EF4:  Connected To FPGA System Reset                          *
*   TMP:   29.1250 C                                              *
*   U22:  S29GL032N DETECTED                                      *
*******************************************************************
Type  for command options. 

ADS>

and install
sudo mkdir /home/Xilinx/
sudo chmod 777 /home/Xilinx/
cd Xilinx_11.1_WebPack_SFD
./xsetup

Set the installation path to /home/Xilinx/, and follow the installation process.

When the installation is done, you will be asked for a license. Select "Start ISE WebPack" and click next and follow the instructions on the website. When the license is installed, close the browser window and the Xilinx License Configuration Manager.

The installer will ask for installation of updates. This is advisable, but it is imo easier to download the update files from Xilinx homepage. Go to download and "Software Updates".

Untar the file
tar -xf Xilinx_11.4_ISE_DS_lin.tar

and install
cd Xilinx_11.4_ISE_DS_lin
./xsetup

You are now ready to go, by running
/home/Xilinx/11.1/ISE/bin/lin/ise

If have been injured for some month now, but hoping to be ready for Copenhagen Marathon 2010, and would therefore like to examine my last marathon using Pytrainer. I therefore installed it, and hoped it would work out of the box - but no :)

Enabling the Garmin HR plugin, restarting Pytrainer and clicking "Import from Garmin" did nothing, not even a warning or error in the terminal. Looking at my old post from 8.10, I opened /usr/share/pytrainer/plugins/garmin-hr/main.py to see what was going on.

Pytrainer is using gpsbabel like gpsbabel -t -i garmin -f %s -o gtrnctr -F /tmp/file.gtrnctr, where %s is the device, usb:. But running

gpsbabel -t -i garmin -f usb: -o gtrnctr -F /tmp/file.gtrnctr

in a terminal give this result:

Claim interfaced failed: could not claim interface 0: Operation not permitted

It is therefore still required to make a udev rule for the device.

How to get it working
Make the rule file

sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/51-garmin.rules

add the below and close:

SYSFS{idVendor}=="091e", SYSFS{idProduct}=="0003", MODE="666"

restart udev:

sudo /etc/init.d/udev restart

Now Pytrainer can start gpsbabel, and retrieve data from the watch, which unfortunately just leads to another problem:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pytrainer/main.py", line 166, in runPlugin
self.record.importFromGTRNCTR(gtrnctrFile)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pytrainer/record.py", line 410, in importFromGTRNCTR
listTracksGPS = xmlParser.shortFromGPS(gtrnctrFile, True)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pytrainer/lib/xmlUtils.py", line 127, in shortFromGPS
tree = xml.etree.cElementTree.parse(gtrnctrFile).getroot()
File "", line 45, in parse
File "", line 32, in parse
SyntaxError: unbound prefix: line 13, column 8

According to this bug report, it is a problem between Pytrainer and gpsbabel 1.3.6. Luckily it is still possible to get gpsbabel 1.3.5 at http://packages.debian.org/lenny/i386/gpsbabel/download, which I downloaded and installed, and it worked with Pytrainer.

However, Pytrainer imports all data from today back to 24 May 2009, the date of the marathon, and stops without any error. It might be because this record has 43 laps, but I do not know. Anyway, it is quite useless if it is not possible to retrieve all data from the watch.

Select Third-Party Software and and check the checkbox for http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu partner.
Close and accept to reload.

It is now possible to install "acroread" by
sudo apt-get install acroread

Or from System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager, but for some reason it is not found in Ubuntu Software Center?

Update: 2009-11-03 @ 00:56
According to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareCenter version 3 of the SoftwareCenter will offer "commercial software for sale". But according to http://www.ghacks.net/2009/10/30/the-new-ubuntu-software-center/ and http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/?p=1031 it should be possible to install "commercial/non-free software" in version 3.

In Ubuntu 10.4 the Software Center should replace "Synaptic, Software Sources, Gdebi, and possibly the Update Manager" according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Software_Center, so version 3 should be out at that time - I hope :)

Install Eclipse Galileo from repository:

sudo apt-get install eclipse

A number of dependencies are required inside Eclipse, which has to be added. Start Eclipse from the menu, and select Help > Install new software... The below list of update sites has to be added, which is done be typing the URL in "Work with", click Add and then type the name in the name field followed by Ok. Do this for the below update sites (name followed by URL):

EMF, http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/updates/releases/
MyLyn, http://download.eclipse.org/tools/mylyn/update/e3.4/
GEF, http://download.eclipse.org/tools/gef/updates/releases/
DLTK, http://download.eclipse.org/releases/galileo/
Webtool, http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/updates/

PDT
Add http://download.eclipse.org/tools/pdt/updates/2.0/ with name PDT. Open "PDT SDK 2.1.2" and select "PHP Development Tools (PDT) Runtime Feature", click Next twice, accept the license and click Finish.

Subclipse
SVN integration (or one of them) in Eclipse is called Subclipse and is installed through update sites as well. Select Help > Install new software... and add http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.6.x into the "Work with" field and click Add type "Subclipse" in name and click Ok. Select all three options and click Next, Next, accept License and click Finish.

Checking out a project
Select File -> New -> Other in the new window select SVN -> Checkout Projects from SVN and click Next.

Select "Create a new repository location", click Next. Type SVN repository in URL, click Next. Type username and password if required. Select the part of the repository containing the project, click Finish.

If the repository not already holds project settings for Eclipse, select "Check out as a project configured using the New Project Wizard" and click Finish. In the New Project Wizard select PHP -> PHP Project and click Next. Give the project a name and you are ready to go - have fun! :)

Unfortunately, the installer (the alternative one) do not recognise the encrypted hard drive, and is therefore not able to use it. This little guide helps you to reuse your LVM layout - and your data!

NB: Use this guide at your own risk!

Follow the installation until "Set up network", then press ctrl-alt F2 to start a console and run

modprobe dm-crypt
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda5 sda5_crypt


Replace /dev/sda5 with your encrypted partition. You will now be prompted for your passphrase for the encrypted partition, after which you run

vgscan
vgchange -ay

in order to activate the lvm volumes.

Press ctrl-alt f1 to get back to the installer. When asked for partition method select Manual, and your encrypted LVM volumes are now on the list. You still need to set mount points etc., and remember NOT to mark them for formatting. Continue the installation.

Boot into rescue with your LVM root volume as /

Find the unique id for this "disk" from:
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid

Insert a line like

sda5_crypt /dev/disk/by-uuid/df05112c-65bf-44a2-b6d1-a740c3444b53 none luks

into /etc/crypttab. Remember to use the uuid found above together with what ever name you have given the device. sda5_crypt will give a device called /dev/mapper/sda5_crypt

To avoid manually typing the uuid, it is possible just to do:
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid >> /etc/crypttab
nano - /etc/crypttab

This will copy the entire content of "ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid" into the bottom of /etc/crypttab, and open the file for editing with nano.

Run update-initramfs -u, reboot and you are ready to go!

sudo a2enmod vhost_alias

Next you have to make a config file for apache. I only use this setup, and have no other virtual hosts, so I just uses the default config file:

sudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default

and make it something like:

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName localhost
   ServerAlias *.localhost

   VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/htdocs/%1/

   <directory /var/www/>
      AllowOverride AuthConfig Options FileInfo Limit
      Options MultiViews SymlinksIfOwnerMatch
      Order allow,deny
      Allow from all
   </Directory>

   ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
   LogLevel warn
</virtualhost>

The important part is that there is not DocumentRoot, but instead the line:

VirtualDocumentRoot /var/www/htdocs/%1/

%1 means "the first part" of the domain, so if the domain is customer1.localhost the document root will be /var/www/htdocs/customer1/. There is different settings for this, which can be seen in the Apache doc.

Remember to restart apache:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now you just have to create all the directories in /var/www/htdocs/ as you like, and add the corresponding sub-domains in the host file:

sudo gedit /etc/hosts

and add the sub-domains

127.0.1.1 customer1.localhost
127.0.1.1 customer2.localhost
127.0.1.1 customer3.localhost

Have fun :)

Update: index page
Creating the directory /var/www/htdocs/localhost/ with the below code in index.php, it is possible to make an index page of all pages.

<?
$dir_handle = @opendir("../");

while ($file = readdir($dir_handle)) {
if($file!="." && $file!=".." && $file!="localhost") echo "<a href='http://$file.localhost'>http://$file.localhost<br />";
}

closedir($dir_handle);

?>