Installing ModelSim on Ubuntu

modelsim_installation.md

ModelSim Installation on Ubuntu

Installation requirements

The free version of Modelsim is a 32-bit binary and therefore requires certain 32-bit libraries in order to work correctly. For Ubunutu, install the following packages

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 lib32ncurses6 libxft2 libxft2:i386 libxext6 libxext6:i386 

Installation

Download the ModelSim - Intel FPGA edition installer (both packages) from the Intel homepage.

Make the installer executable

chmod +x ModelSimSetup-20.1.1.720-linux.run

Run the installer and install ModelSim:

./ModelSimSetup-20.1.1.720-linux.run

We assume ModelSim to be installed to /opt. If this is the case, the binaries are in /opt/modelsim_ase/bin/. In order to work with these tools, you need to add this folder to the path variable. Therefore, add the following line to your terminal configuration file, e.g., .bashrc or .zshrc.

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/modelsim_ase/bin

Hi, fyi another error-case: lib32ncurses5 -> lib32ncurses6, b32ncurses5 -> b32ncurses6. He replaced the lib - see tiagorlampert/sAINT#10 (comment)

This worked perfectly for me on the first try. Thank you.

Freetype URL has changed to (note the freetype-old):
http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/freetype/freetype-old/freetype-2.4.12.tar.bz2

I'm using ubuntu 18 and Modelsim 20.1 only worked for me with the following libs:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update

sudo apt install libxft2 libxft2:i386 lib32ncurses5
sudo apt install libxext6
sudo apt install libxext6:i386

Source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62718951/how-to-fix-libxft-so-2-cannot-open-shared-object-file-when-simulating-hardware

It works like a charm. Thank you.

I ran into issues with modelsim's non-vendor versions (i.e. PE, DE, SE 202*.*) on Ubuntu 20.04. After installing modelsim, the following fixed all errors (and lack of errors):

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
    libc6 libc6:i386 
    libncurses5 libncurses5:i386 \
    libstdc++6 libstdc++6:i386 \
    libxext6 libxext6:i386 \
    libxft2 libxft2:i386

Thank you very much, I installed it and it worked perfectly.

May Jesus bless you so much.

model sim run command: ./intelFPGA/20.1/modelsim_ase/bin/vsim

It worked for me on the latest version,20.1(same as the link above).It might not work for an older version(such as 18.1).If it didn't work for you,try the latest version.

thank you so much : )

Thank you so much

I have Ubuntu 23.10 and I tried to install this current version of Modelsim 20.1

I had the error of
/tools/intelFPGA/20.1/modelsim_ase/bin/../linux/vish: error while loading shared libraries: libXft.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The libncurses5 is not available any more!!! Instead:
sudo apt-get install libncurses6

Then I installed
sudo apt-get install libxft2 libxft2:i386

and when I ran vsim it worked very well!

Hope this was helpful

Also another problem that I encountered
libXext.so.6: cannot open shared object file. libXext.so.6 not found

sudo apt install libxext6
sudo apt install libxext6:i386

Thanks You :)