Nios-V with FreeRTOS

[XleraSolutions]

Hi All,

I have an existing design using Nios-V with FreeRTOS, built on Q23.4. I updated to Q24.1 and all of the drivers for altera/intel components (TSE, mSGDMA, SPI, etc) do not get included in the BSP. Only the altera uart and jtag uart make it in there (as do my custom modules with drivers). 

If I select HAL for the BSP they are there. If I choose FreeRTOS they are not. They all were there with FreeRTOS on Q23.1, just not on Q24.1.

I notice that the *_sw.tcl files for these modules do not have a line for "add_sw_property supported_bsp_type FREERTOS" under <install>\24.1\ip\altera. They did not in Q23.4 either but still made it.

Assuming Q24.1 now respects that, I tried to add to see what happens, but no luck.

[JingyangTeh_Altera]

Hi

Could you try try sharing me your project file and I could try take a look at the design on my end?

Regards

Jingyang, Teh

[XleraSolutions]

Hi,

Sure, I put together a simple project that demonstrates the issue (qar attached).

It only has the qsys module and bsp (test.qsys and test.bsp). The QSYS has the nios-v plus JTAG UART, I2C Master, SPI, and PIO. When you generate the BSP for FreeRTOS, only the driver for the JTAG uart is there, not for the others (see screenshot).

I ran the project on Q23.4 to ensure the drivers are all present when you generate the bsp (they are).

Thanks!

[XleraSolutions]

Any update on this? Thanks!

[JingyangTeh_Altera]

Hi

Sorry for the late response as there is a sudden surge of cases to be handled.

I managed to reproduce this issue on my end and have filed a case to the engineering team .

Will update you once engineering replied on this case.

Regards

Jingyang, Teh

[XleraSolutions]

Perfect, thank you!

[JingyangTeh_Altera]

Hi

This have been acknowledge by the engineering team that the FreeRTOS BSP Generation for NiosV is not available in 24.1 and still working on this and did not provide a timeline on fixing this.

Short term if you are required to use FreeRTOS, please stick with 23.4 at the moment.

I tested out the quick hack on the editing the tcl script but it is not working on generating the BSP for FreeRTOS.

Regards

Jingyang, Teh

[XleraSolutions]

Ok, thank you. Please keep me posted.

[JingyangTeh_Altera]

Hi

Sorry for the bearer of bad news.

Engineering is currently aware of this breakage and due to their deliverables that is planned for this year they are unable to release a fix within this year.

The earliest possible plan for this would be next year.

If it is ok with you can we proceed to close this case?

I will post the internal HSD Case number so that you could follow up with us on this issue in the future. 15016036458

Regards

Jingyang, Teh

[XleraSolutions]

Hi Jingyang,

So, FreeRTOS on Nios-V is no longer supported?

[JingyangTeh_Altera]

Hi

FreeRTOS is still supported. We acknowledge that currently with 24.1 the FreeRTOS is having a bug in generating the BSP. But with the recent planning they would not be able to provide a patch until next year.

Regards

Jingyang, Teh

[JingyangTeh_Altera]

Hi

Since this thread been resolve, I shall set this thread to close pending. If you still need further assistance, you are welcome to reopen this thread within 20days or open a new thread, some one will be right with you. Please login to ‘https://supporttickets.intel.com’, view details of the desire request, and post a feed/response within the next 15 days to allow me to continue to support you. After 15 days, this thread will be transitioned to community support. The community users will be able to help you on your follow-up questions.

If you happened to close this thread you might receive a survey. If you think you would rank your support experience less than 4 out of 10, please allow me to correct it before closing or if the problem can’t be corrected, please let me know the cause so that I may improve your future service experience.

Regards

Jingyang, Teh

[Keegan1]

We are now on Quartus 24.3 and attempting to start using FreeRTOS. I think we see the same issue as original poster.

When generating the BSP for a Nios V + FreeRTOS project, only the altera_avalon_uart and altera_avalon_jtag_uart drivers are available in the generated BSP. No other drivers, such as SPI, I2C, PIO are present. However the two drivers which are copied build succesfully.

Meanwhile on Quartus 23.4 as suggested -- the drivers are copied, but the BSP has build errors regarding OS_FLAG_etc not found.

From my perspective FreeRTOS is not possible to use with NiosV. Do you have any suggestion?

[agieson_cl]

Hi! I'm experiencing the same issues described in this post in the new Quartus Standard 24.1 (released 3/17/25). I wanted to check in to see if there was any fix or workaround to the drivers not populating in the BSP when updating a design to freeRTOS in the newest version of quartus standard. Thank you!