Installation

Installation Requirements

The Vitis™ software platform consists of an integrated design environment (IDE) for interactive project development, and command-line tools for scripted or manual application development. The Vitis software platform also includes the Vivado® Design Suite for implementing the kernel on the target device, and for developing custom hardware platforms.

Some requirements listed here are only required for software acceleration features, but not for embedded software development features. Xilinx recommends installing all the required packages to have the best experience with the Vitis software platform.

To install and run on a computer, your system must meet the following minimum requirements.

Table 1. Embedded Software Development Flow Minimum System Requirements
Component	Requirement
Component	Development (Build Machine OS)
Operating System	Linux, 64-bit: CentOS/RHEL 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 7.8, 8.1, 8.2 RHEL 8.3 Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS,16.04.6 LTS, 18.04.1 LTS, 18.04.2 LTS, 18.04.3 LTS, 18.04.4 LTS, 18.04.5 LTS, 20.04 LTS, 20.04.1 LTS Note: For Ubuntu, additional library installation is required. Amazon Linux 2 AL2 LTS SUSE Enterprise Linux 12.4, 15.2 Windows 10, 64-bit: Professional and Enterprise versions 1809, 1903, 1909, and 2004
System Memory	32 GB (64 GB is recommended)
Internet Connection	Required for downloading drivers and utilities.
Hard disk space	100 GB

Vitis Software Platform Installation

Installing the Vitis Software Platform

Ensure your system meets all requirements described in Installation Requirements.

TIP: To reduce installation time, disable anti-virus software and close all open programs that are not needed.

Go to the Xilinx Downloads Website.
Download the installer for your operating system.
Run the installer, which opens the Welcome page of the Xilinx Unified 2021.1 Installer.
Click Next to open the Select Install Type page of the Installer.
Enter your Xilinx user account credentials, and then select Download and Install Now.
Click Next to open the Accept License Agreements page of the Installer.
Accept the terms and conditions by clicking each I Agree check box.
Click Next to open the Select Product to Install page of the Installer.
Select Vitis and click Next to open the Vitis Unified Software Platform page of the Installer.
Customize your installation by selecting design tools and devices (optional).
IMPORTANT: Do not deselect the following option. It is required for installation.
- Devices > Install devices for Alveo and Xilinx Edge acceleration platforms
Note: Both the Vitis tools and Vivado Design Suite are installed as part of the Vitis Unified Software Platform. You do not need to separately install Vivado tools. You can also install System Generator and Model Composer if needed.
Click Next to open the Select Destination Directory page of the Installer
Specify the installation directory, review the location summary, review the disk space required to insure there is enough space, and click Next to open the Installation Summary page of the Installer.
Click Install to begin the installation of the software.

Note: Both the Vitis tools and Vivado Design Suite are installed as part of the Vitis Unified Software Platform. You do not need to separately install Vivado tools. You can also install System Generator and Model Composer if needed.

After a successful installation of the Vitis software, a confirmation message is displayed, with a prompt to run the installLibs.sh script.

Locate the script at: <install_dir>/Vitis/<release>/scripts/installLibs.sh, where <install_dir> is the location of your installation, and <release> is the installation version.

Note: This script is not required on Windows.
Run the script using sudo privileges as follows:
```
sudo installLibs.sh
```

The command installs a number of necessary packages for the Vitis tools based on the OS of your system.

IMPORTANT: Pay attention to any messages returned by the script. You might need to install any missing packages manually.

Installing Embedded Platforms

Embedded platforms are available to download from the Vitis Embedded Platforms download page for use in the Vitis unified software platform. For the Vitis embedded software development flow, you can use embedded platforms with Linux, standalone/bare metal, or RTOS domains. To support the Vitis application acceleration development flow, embedded platforms must run Linux, with XRT integrated into the rootfs. A complete list of the supported platforms can be found on the downloads page.

To install a platform, download the zip file and extract it into /opt/xilinx/platforms, or extract it into a separate location and add that location to the PLATFORM_REPO_PATHS environment variable.

Embedded platforms require a sysroot to cross-compile the host application for the Vitis application acceleration flow. Look for the Common images for Embedded Vitis platforms block on the downloads page, and download and extract the common image for your platform architecture.

Running sdk.sh extracts and installs the sysroot. The option -dgives you the option to choose where to install the sysroot. This package also provides a pre-compiled kernel image and rootfs.

You can add the sysroot to a Makefile for your command line project, or the Vitis IDE will prompt you to add it to your application project. For example, in your Makefile point <SYSROOT> to /<install_path>/aarch64-xilinx-linux, which is generated when running sdk.sh.

For more details about customizing the Xilinx pre-built base platforms to add more domains, see Customizing a Pre-Built Platform.

Setting Up the Environment to Run the Vitis Software Platform

To configure the environment to run the Vitis software platform, run the following script in a command shell to set up the tools to run in that shell:

 #setup XILINX_VITIS and XILINX_VIVADO variables 
source <Vitis_install_path>/Vitis/2021.1/settings64.sh

TIP: .csh scripts are also provided.

This sets up the tools for the Vitis embedded software development flow.

To use any platforms you have downloaded as described in Installing Embedded Platforms, set the following environment variable to point to the location of the platforms:

export PLATFORM_REPO_PATHS=<path to platforms>

This identifies the location of platform files for the tools, and makes them accessible to your design projects.

Windows

To launch the Vitis software platform from Windows, do one of the following:

Launch from a desktop button or Start menu command.
From a Windows command shell, use settings64.bat:
```
C:> <VITIS_INSTALL_DIR>\VITIS\2021.1\settings64.bat
```
And launch: vitis.