From 4d9e8d3b47de8528fb2d5e2d5e090505d7198417 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jacob Lifshay <programmerjake@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2025 23:00:16 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Add building blinky example to the readme

---
 README.md | 37 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 37 insertions(+)

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 0b91833..011922d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -8,6 +8,43 @@ Fayalite is a library for designing digital hardware -- a hardware description l
 
 [FIRRTL]: https://github.com/chipsalliance/firrtl-spec
 
+# Building the [Blinky example] for the Arty A7 100T on Linux
+
+[Blinky example]: crates/fayalite/examples/blinky.rs
+
+This uses the container image containing all the external programs and files that Fayalite needs to build for FPGAs, the sources for the container image are in https://git.libre-chip.org/libre-chip/fayalite-deps
+
+Steps:
+
+Install podman (or docker).
+
+Run:
+```bash
+podman run --rm --security-opt label=disable --volume="$(pwd):$(pwd)" -w="$(pwd)" -it git.libre-chip.org/libre-chip/fayalite-deps:latest cargo run --example blinky yosys-nextpnr-xray --nextpnr-xilinx-chipdb-dir /opt/fayalite-deps/nextpnr-xilinx/xilinx --prjxray-db-dir /opt/fayalite-deps/prjxray-db --platform arty-a7-100t -o target/blinky-out
+```
+
+To actually program the FPGA, you'll need to install [openFPGALoader] on your host OS:
+
+[openFPGALoader]: https://github.com/trabucayre/openFPGALoader
+
+On Debian 12:
+```bash
+sudo apt update && sudo apt install openfpgaloader
+```
+
+Then program the FPGA:
+```bash
+sudo openFPGALoader --board arty_a7_100t target/blinky-out/blinky.bit
+```
+
+This will program the FPGA but leave the Flash chip unmodified, so the FPGA will revert when the board is power-cycled.
+
+To program the Flash also, so it stays programmed when power-cycling the board:
+
+```bash
+sudo openFPGALoader --board arty_a7_100t -f target/blinky-out/blinky.bit
+```
+
 # Funding
 
 ## NLnet Grants