openFPGALoader VS XilinxVirtualCable

Another way to flash the devices in Linux is to use https://github.com/trabucayre/openFPGALoader which supports a variety of cables and devices. It also supports the Xilinx Virtual Cable protocol, which allows you to use Xilinx tools like ChipScope with almost any cable.

Even though I saw multiple proposed solutions around the web, I could not get the Gowin cable to be detected under Ubuntu Linux as well, so neither the programmer nor GAO could work. I tried opensource openFPGALoader as an alternative to the programmer (but not GAO of course..), but got some issues as well (not with cable, but with certain bitstreams causing the programming to hang). So the easiest solution for me to stick with Windows version.

i could/should eventually open a ticket on the openFPGAloader indeed

Most Linux users seem to prefer openFPGALoader, but if you need GAO and the other suggestions don't work you might have to use a Windows VM, thankfully Gowin IDE supports (supported?) Windows XP/7 if you want a lightweight guest.

You might be able to use a tool like openFPGALoader to load a bitstream onto your board from macOS.

Try openFPGALoader. It works fine in Windows 10 and Linux for me. https://github.com/trabucayre/openFPGALoader

There's the open source openFPGALoader with explicit support for macOS if i remember correctly, I'm not sure if it supports all the features but it should be a good starting point.

u/PCB4lyfe all you need are just the drivers for the USB blaster. To load the bitstream you can use openFPGALoader https://github.com/trabucayre/openFPGALoader

OP, if that doesn't work, and you feel comfortable installing openFPGALoader (https://github.com/trabucayre/openFPGALoader), I can send you the GPIO demo bitstream to put on your board.

Yes, any board with the FTDI FT232H works as a JTAG programmer (I actually have the one you linked). You may probably need some jumper wires that have the Xilinx-specific 0.2mm pitch, though, rather than the more convential 0.254mm or 0.1" pitch, if your FPGA board has the actual Xilinx JTAG header. To get it to work inside Vivado, you can use Xilinx Virtual Cable, which is a TCP/IP protocol to act as a JTAG cable (see https://github.com/Xilinx/XilinxVirtualCable and https://github.com/tmbinc/xvcd). The idea is that you basically have a TCP/IP daemon that speaks XVC and relies on libftdi or libusb to communicate with Vivado through XVC and do the actual JTAG programming.