Setting up Chisel

Here is how to set up the OS environment Chisel Environment, within which to run the setup script, below. The setup script will install all the tools needed, and the clone the tutorial examples into the environment.

Dependencies and Tutorial Set-up

We provide a script that installs the tools needed for the Journey, and clones example hands on exercises into it, setting up everything you need for the rest of the journey.

The script has been tested within the suggested Chisel Environment and it should work on any other Ubuntu-like OS. (It is provided without a warranty with no responsibility by the author nor the provider for any harm caused. The VM environment provides isolated environment.)

Please download it here, and run it as follows:

sudo ./setLearningJourney.sh

When run, it will inform you about all the details what will it (try to) do on your system and you will have a chance to pull back before it performs any action.

Once the script finishes, please set the permissions accordingly:

sudo chown -R <YOUR_USERNAME>:<YOUR_USERNAME> ~/LearningJourney

If you prefer not to run the script or you would like to follow the Chisel Learning Journey within a different environment, exact instructions to install Chisel3 are provided at the the original repo¹.

Note: The script is still in development, so please do report back any bugs to the e-mail given in the header of the script.

Testing Your System

Once the dependencies have been successfully installed and the tutorial repository obtained, please test if everything is fine, running (remaining inside the directory chisel-tutorial):

$ sbt run

That step is supposed to generate and test a simple block (Hello) that always outputs the number 42 (its value in hexadecimal being 0x2a). You should see [success] on the last line of output (from sbt) and PASSED on the line before indicating the block passed the testcase, as follows:

[info] Running hello.Hello 
[info] [0.011] Elaborating design...
[info] [0.270] Done elaborating.
Total FIRRTL Compile Time: 2238.9 ms
Total FIRRTL Compile Time: 27.6 ms
End of dependency graph
Circuit state created
[info] [0.010] SEED 1514026331022
test Hello Success: 1 tests passed in 6 cycles taking 0.036811 seconds
[info] [0.017] RAN 1 CYCLES PASSED
[success] Total time: 90 s, completed Dec 23, 2017 11:52:15 AM

Since this is the first time you are this, sbt will automatically download the appropriate versions of Chisel3 and Scala and cache them (usually in ~/.ivy2). That's why this first run might take a while.

Next Steps

Please, proceed to the next step, the Chisel Introductory Examples.

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1) Don't get confused because those instructions mention Firrtl - as you will be building from the release branch of Chisel3, the required jar is taken care of by sbt, so just ignore that part for now.