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DE2: Control Panel application for Linux

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Hello! 

 

I am trying to build a random-number generator, but I want to check the output values to see their distribution. I intend to write the random-numbers to the SRAM on board the DE2 board and view the contents using the Control Panel application. The catch is that I am using Linux. 

 

Is there a Linux distribution of the Control Panel application for DE2 boards? 

 

Is there any other way to view the on-board SDRAM/SRAM contents? 

 

Thank you
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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As far as I know, there is no support for Linux with the pre-made GUIs. You can however use System Console to access your own custom logic, eg., 

 

http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/using_the_usb-blaster_as_an_sopc/qsys_avalon-mm_master_tutorial 

 

Here's some random number generator documentation/code using LFSRs/PRBSs, 

 

http://www.ovro.caltech.edu/~dwh/correlator/pdf/lfsr_tutorial.pdf 

http://www.ovro.caltech.edu/~dwh/correlator/pdf/lfsr_tutorial_src.zip 

 

How are you generating random numbers? And for what purpose? 

 

Cheers, 

Dave
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Thank you Dave! 

 

I am from an ASIC design background, trying to cosy with FPGAs. 

 

I am trying to generate Gaussian samples starting with Tauseworthe Random Number Generators. I might dabble in hash functions later on too. 

 

I wanted to respond earlier, but the site seemed down - your response let me concentrate on other things without trying too hard to get Control Panel work on Linux using wine etc, and wasting a lot of time. 

 

Thank you, 

Anand
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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--- Quote Start ---  

 

I am trying to generate Gaussian samples starting with Tauseworthe Random Number Generators. 

 

--- Quote End ---  

 

Do you have references on this method? The few Google hits I looked at just showed LFSRs, which would not give you Gaussian noise, and if you've reviewed the link to the LFSRs tutorial, you'll see that you can get Gaussian-like noise, but its not really Gaussian (unless you sum enough uniform distros together so that the central-limit theorem works well). 

 

 

--- Quote Start ---  

 

I wanted to respond earlier, but the site seemed down - your response let me concentrate on other things without trying too hard to get Control Panel work on Linux using wine etc, and wasting a lot of time. 

 

--- Quote End ---  

 

Don't waste your time working with any of the closed-source applications provided with the evaluation boards. 

 

Cheers, 

Dave
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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This is a really late reply, sorry for that. I missed the e-mail from altera. 

 

The reference I used was: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.97.9309&rep=rep1&type=pdf 

 

It takes the LFSR output and uses a Box-Muller transform on that involving sine,cos,log,sqrt etc to get a Gaussian Distribution. It looks like a very good candidate for FPGA implementation as you can get all these function implemented in a single cycle and throw in multiple parallel implementations to get a large number of samples per second. 

 

I did complete the coding and did some signal-taps using the Quartus software to sort of check what I got out of the design. The data looks roughly gaussian (didn't do any histogram checks - just judged that the samples had a large number of small values, and a small number of large values) - but I haven't had a chance to quantify it entirely, and a couple of things I saw tells me it's not quite right. The project is shelved for now, hoping to come back later to it. 

 

Yeah I stopped looking at terasic software. I just couldn't get anywhere with it. Maybe if I had gotten to your response earlier, I would have decided even earlier to not go on the wild goose cha 

 

Thanks Dave, 

Anand
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