Accessing Mentor Graphics GUI from off-campus

Electrical and Computer Engineering students at UMR use the Mentor Graphics EDA tools available in the EE106 computer lab. Those computers are Sun workstations, and they are annoying to use, especially because of their awkward placement of the Ctrl and Caps lock keys. It's also annoying to have to work on homework in that lab when you'd rather be home. After lots of trial and error I figured out how to make the software work in Windows from off-campus.

Download Cygwin

Unix-based operating system need a graphics server (typically "X") to provide a GUI. The workstations in EE106 already have an X server running, but your typical Windows computer does not. To solve this problem you'll have to download a Unix emulation program called Cygwin.

• Download Cygwin setup.exe and run it.
• The Install Wizard will come up. Click "Next," choose "Install from Internet," leave the installation directory unless you want to install somewhere else, then pick a place to store installation files. Then choose "Direct connection," unless you know how to deal with your proy settings. Finally, pick a mirror from the list - it doesn't matter which one.
• You will get a huge list of packages. Click the "View" button to change to "Full" view, and then select openssh and xorg-x11-base by clicking their names so that an X appears in their checkbox on the left.
• Click "Next" and allow the files to download and install. This might take a while depending on which mirror you picked.

Connect to the UMR VPN

If you're on campus in the dorms you don't have to do this step. If you're off campus, you need to connect to the UMR VPN. Instructions for that are at the Access Your UMR S: Drive page.

Download the Mentor Fonts

After you install Cygwin, you need to install the fonts for Mentor Graphics. You will need an FTP client for this - I recommend FileZilla and will assume you can get that up and running.

• Open FileZilla.
• Click the File Menu and choose the Site Manager.
• Click the "New Site" button.
• On the right side, fill in the following information:
  • Host: ece106bladeX.ece.umr.edu but replace X with a number like 1, 2, 3...
  • Port: 22
  • Servertype: SFTP using SSH2
  • Logontype: Normal
  • User: Fill in your UMR username
  • Password: Fill in your UMR password.
• Click "Connect" at the bottom. Hopefully everything will work and you will get connected.
• Assuming you do, on the left part of your window, click in the "Local Site" field and paste in C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\lib\X11\fonts\ - the fonts directory for Cygwin will show.
• In the directory listing, right click in a blank part of the window and click "Create Directory..." Type in mgc when it asks for a name.
• After creating the directory, double click on it to enter it.
• Now click in the "Remote Site" field on the right half of the window and paste in /mentor/pkgs/base/fonts/ - the remote fonts directory will show.
• Highlight all the files in that directory and drag them over to your font folder on the left side.
• Repeat the last two steps for the /mentor/registry/fonts/ folder - this folder will take a few moments to download.

Install the Mentor Fonts

• Use the Windows Run command and run C:\Cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin\startxwin.bat
• Type cd /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/mentor/. This should get you to the directory in which you placed the fonts you downloaded.
• Type mkfontdir - It will do some stuff.

Run Mentor Graphics

If you're doing this for the first time you already have X open. If not, use the Windows Run command and run C:\Cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin\startxwin.bat and then proceed.

• Type xset fp+ /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/mentor/ to set up Cygwin's Xserver to use the Mentor Graphics fonts.
• Type xhost + to allow remote connections to Cygwin's X server. This is a rather insecure method of doing this, but you should be OK. Maybe don't leave the X server open all the time, though, just when you're working on it
• Type ssh -Y -l username ece106bladeX.ece.umr.edu, replacing the X with a number like 1, 2, 3... and username with your username.
• Type in your password when it asks.
• Assuming all goes well, you're in. Use the Unix commands like you would in the actual lab to change directories and such. You can use Design Architect (da), set up a simulation with Spartan parts (pld_dve -s partname spartan), and run QuickSim (quicksim partname). Make sure you change into the appropriate directory for your project and do sul and swd to set up the environmental variables.