Can't scan jtag chain on Altera Arria 10 SoC development board with Linux

1

This must be an easy one… I say that because I don’t see anybody else asking this question:

I’m trying to use Ubuntu 14.1 to connect to the jtag port on an Altera Arria 10 Soc development board using an external USB blaster. The PC sees the blaster, but the blaster doesn’t see the jtag chain. I get an “unable to scan device. Please check hardware setup” error. I know the hardware is good because I can switch the usb cable into my Win7 box and it scans and programs the FPGA fine.

The other frustration I have is neither PC will recognize the on-board USB blaster

Any ideas?

2

Hi @hoople,

Have you configured the USB rules to recognize your USB blaster in your linux box?

Regarding the on-onboard USB-Blaster: did you double check any jumpers in the board? If an external USB-Blaster can drive your board, then most likely this is the case, that config jumpers took off the chain from the on-board blaster and redirected to the connector for the external one.

3

I’m not sure what you mean by configure the USB rules to recognize the USB Blaster. When I open the Quartus Programmer on the Linux box, and open the Setup Hardware panel, it sees the (external) USB Blaster and I can select it so it appears that Quartus recognizes the USB Blaster hardware okay. But when I try to auto-detect my jtag chain that’s when I get the error.

And I have double checked the board settings. On this board the JTAG settings are selected with the SW3 dip switch settings and I have it set to make the USB Blaster the JTAG master (these are the factory default settings). If I didn’t have that right, the Windows box wouldn’t be able to scan the JTAG chain either, but it has no problem (with the external USB Blaster at least).

(BTW, the settings are the same for both the external and internal USB Blaster. When I have the external one plugged into the header it automatically disables the internal USB Blaster (according to the user manual)).

4

Update:

I assumed that since the USB Blaster appears in the Setup Hardware panel that the tool was talking to the hardware. That’s the way it works on the Windows box. But It remains a choice on the Linux box even if the USB cable is unplugged. So after a quick step back and a google search on how to set things up for Linux, I’ve got it working. Had to add the rules file like you said. This even made the on-board USB Blaster come alive.

Thanks!