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The European Union's interoperability page reports:
Using open source in school greatly reduces the time needed to troubleshoot PCs, [as indicated by] the case of the Colegio Agustinos de León (Augustinian College of León, Spain). In 2013, the school switched to using Ubuntu Linux for its desktop PCs in [classrooms] and offices. For teachers and staff, the amount of technical issues decreased by 63 per cent and in the school's computer labs by 90 per cent, says Fernando Lanero, computer science teacher and head of the school's IT department.
[...] "One year after we changed PC operating system, I have objective data on Ubuntu Linux", Lanero tells Muy Linux [English Translation], a Spanish Linux news site. By switching to Linux, incidents such as computer viruses, system degradation, and many diverse technical issues disappeared instantly.
The change also helps the school save money, he adds. Not having to purchase [licenses] for proprietary operating systems, office suites, and anti-virus tools has already saved about €35,000 in the 2014-2015 school year, Lanero says. "Obviously it is much more interesting to invest that money in education."
[...] The biggest hurdle for the IT department was the use of electronic whiteboards. The school uses 30 of such whiteboards, and their manufacturer [Hitachi] does not support the use of Linux. Lanero got the Spanish Linux community involved, and "after their hard work, Ubuntu Linux now includes support for the whiteboards, so now everything is working as it should".
[...] Issues [with proprietary document formats] were temporarily resolved by using a cloud-based proprietary office solution, says Lanero, giving the IT department time to complete the switch to open standards-based office solutions. The school now mostly uses the LibreOffice suite of office tools.
[...] "Across the country, schools have contacted me to hear about the performance and learn how to undertake similar migrations."
As I always say, simply avoid manufacturers with lousy support and FOSS is just the ticket.
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday May 26 2015, @02:15PM
What?
Lattice: http://www.latticesemi.com/en/Products/DesignSoftwareAndIP/FPGAandLDS/LatticeDiamond.aspx#linux [latticesemi.com]
Altera: http://dl.altera.com/?edition=subscription&platform=linux [altera.com]
Xilinx: http://www.xilinx.com/support/download.html [xilinx.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 26 2015, @03:50PM
You have to install something like the xylinx software to a machine connected to the FPGA board.
You could make a FPGA "appliance" that you'd connect to via a web interface or VNC/rdesktop using a rasp pi maybe somehow? It would be slow.
A truly amazingly advanced dev board could host a webserver that allows you to upload to the FPGA from a web interface, I suppose.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday May 26 2015, @04:06PM
Huh? But in case I understood you correctly, Xilinx FPGAs can be programmed by any OS that can talk to a USB serial port (FT2232H.) Lattice CPLD is programmed over JTAG, I2C, SPI. None of that is an OS-specific process. Xilinx supports Linux for ages. Also, Xilinx has partial reconfiguration - which does allow you to run a web server on the device itself. But it's more practical to use a boot Flash with multiple images and trigger full reconfiguration when done.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 26 2015, @04:22PM
None of that is an OS-specific process.
All of that is an OS-specific process and can only be done from a local native application of some sort, even if its a java app that runs on anything with a JVM, hardwired to the physical board via USB cable. (and don't get me started on companies that fill their USB ports with silicone to prevent IP theft)
None of those can be done, say, from my phone, over its wifi connection using nothing more than the phone's web browser connecting to a site. Unless you stretch definition into a windows box with the application installed on it and a VNC server and then any VNC client on the LAN can connect to it and run the native app remotely.
In corporate IT land or academia land I need signed forms and permissions and evaluations for every individual box or individual user account that has an app installed. With a web interface I need one guy to get permission to plug it in, assign an address and DNS name, and then anyone in the company can type a url into their browser without first filing an IT permission slip.
I know Xylinx supports linux natively as a native app, thats the only way I've ever programmed a FPGA or CPLD. I guess it works on windows and osx too although I've never tried it. AFAIK there is no dev board out there that plugs in an ethernet cable, it DHCPs and Bonjours itself, then you connect any ole web browser to http://something:80 [something] and theres a complete development environment without installing anything on the machine that runs the web browser.
Its like the difference between running Outlook Express native client which is installed on the box, and Outlook webmail.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday May 26 2015, @05:03PM
I know Xylinx supports linux natively as a native app, thats the only way I've ever programmed a FPGA or CPLD. I guess it works on windows and osx too although I've never tried it. AFAIK there is no dev board out there that plugs in an ethernet cable, it DHCPs and Bonjours itself, then you connect any ole web browser to http://something:80 [something] and theres a complete development environment without installing anything on the machine that runs the web browser.
That is because that "board" would have to be a complete PC with a good amount of RAM and a fast CPU. This is needed to do the "complete development environment" per your request. Place and route is not exactly instantaneous, especially on large parts and complex designs.
There is also that little issue with licensing. There are free versions of the Xilinx SDK, but there are also large editions that include professional features. Those are not free. I guess one could buy a PC that is loaded with all the software... but why bother if you can buy the software separately and run it on any PC of your choice? Or maybe not one PC but a cluster? (Xilinx supports that for many years now.)
There is only a limited need for a "board" that allows you just to upload a .bit or a Flash image file. That role is currently filled with any old PC that runs a Chipscope Server. Then you can connect to that PC over TCP/IP and do your thing. I don't believe that anyone manufactures a standalone Ethernet-enabled JTAG pod. Is there a market for that? I don't know; but if there is, it's a very small, niche market. Perhaps it is large enough for a one-man company. But the price of the board has to be lower than the price of a Digilent JTAG module plus the R-Pi.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 26 2015, @05:33PM
Yes, although its important to remember that WRT screwing around, I'm not doing anything more technologically impressive than state of the art in 2005, so a single chip computer in 2015 with the specs of a decent 2005 desktop "pi-like" would be more than capable enough for advanced hobbyists and uni students. People were doing "real work" in '95 with '95 class hardware, so screwing around in '05 wasn't very challenging, and now that '05 class hardware fits on a single $5 chip in '15...
I mean, seriously, my first "hello world" project just to prove the toolchain is up and running correctly was a single bit full adder, three switch inputs and two LED outputs. I think that was on the first generation Digilent CPLD board. My first discovery was the LEDs were active low, LOL. I would imagine a stereotypical uni class is equally technologically unambitious. Its not like semesters are longer or kids are smarter than the very recent past. And the SoC of 2020 that has the specs of a 2010 desktop will be even more ridiculously overpowered when doing things that would have been challenging in '95. So in the long run it seems inevitable?
Another interesting sideline with students and hobbyists, is time is not money. So if it takes 5 minutes to compile a Z80 core like it used to in 2005 or whatever it took exactly, well, its not like uni students are highly paid...
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday May 26 2015, @04:25PM
You can interface with an FPGA over SPI or even I2C to upload a bitfile. An arduino with the proper library could upload bitfiles from an SD card or even over BT or wifi. Uploading bitfiles on the fly from a Rpi is not big deal either. But, you can't compile the bitfiles on a Rpi simply because there is no ARM port of the dev tools, yet.
The only instance when you might need Windows is if the dev board manufacturer did not release a Linux driver for their boards integrated serial/jtag adapter. That is just laziness and those boards should be avoided if you need Linux support. Sometimes, they also have Windows only tools for peripheral configuration like writing a binary image to onboard flash. Worst case, you can use a VM running Windows for those tools.
I have developed for both the Digilent Nexys 2 and the Terasic DE0-nano on Linux.