GitHub Codespace with OpenROAD GUI

The goal is to provide a web browser experience of the OpenROAD GUI. Solution works with Firefox and Chrome.

Creating a Codespace

First time Codespace users are encouraged to read the tutorial creating a codespace for a repository

1. Create a codespace from this repository

2. Select ubuntu gui in the Dev container configuration field

3. Click "Create codespace" and after a few minutes, the codespace should be ready for use

Using the Codespace

OpenROAD GUI

1. At the bottom, there should be tab PORTS, where you will find the Forwarded Address. A link is provided, which you can follow to open the OpenROAD GUI

2. NoVNC tab should open - default password is vscode
3. Right-click on desktop and open Terminal and execute the following commands to run OpenROAD GUI

cd ~/OpenROAD-flow-scripts/flow
. ../env.sh
make
make gui_final

VSCode

1. You can also use VSCode to connect to Codespaces
2. Install VSCode
3. Open VSCode and install the GitHub Codespaces extension
4. Press Ctrl+Shift+P and select Codespaces:Connect to Codespace
5. Open a web browser and connect to url: localhost:6080

Useful scripts

User can use:

• /usr/local/bin/set-resolution - change the resolution
• /usr/local/share/desktop-init.sh - desktop (GUI, VNC, etc.) initialization
• /workspaces/openroad-codespace/kill.sh - script to terminate all processes related to vnc. If you want to restart the vnc environment, first kill proceses, then re-lanuch by executing /usr/local/share/desktop-init.sh

In docker build, scripts are used:

• patch-lxqt-config.sh - set the GUI configuration
• patch-novnc-ui.sh - set remote resizing and skip login panel
• install-* - a group of scripts to install dependencies (Yosys, ORFS, etc.)

Developer

ORFS docker images is now built with available binaries. In CI configuration, you will find steps to reproduce the required docker images.

Useful resources:

• Development loop
• devcontainer JSON reference
• Desktop lite feature

Desktop-lite feature

The desktop-lite feature is provided by the devcontainers organization. In this repo, the scripts were heavily modified, c.f. install-desktop.sh.