Working Efficiently with Quartus in EWS Terminals:

If you choose to work on EWS Windows workstations, here's some advice you might find helpful:

1. Compilation and backup: The project compiles much faster on the local drive (C:). However, all the changes you've made to the local drive will not get preserved between login sessions. So please follow the following instructions for working on EWS Windows workstations:
   a. Create the project on a path under the C: drive every time you work on the Quartus lab. Make sure that there's no space in the project pathname
   b. If you are halfway through the lab and/or if you want to preserve your working progress, navigate to your project folder and copy the .bdf file, which contains your circuit, and possibly the Waveform.vwf file, to someplace on your U: drive. Everything on the U: drive is accessed through a network connection, which is slow, but it ensures that your progress gets preserved.
   c. If you want to resume working on a lab project, follow the instructions to create a new project on your C: drive. Then, copy the backup file to your project directory and add it to the project through Project -> Add/Remove files in Project. Then, in your project navigator on the left of the window, switch to the "Files" tab, right-click on the .bdf file you just added and set it as the top-level entity.
   d. Now you can go ahead and continue to work on the lab. Feel free to come to office hours if you need help.
2. Do NOT put your Quartus lab folders inside your git repository, or backup through Github. It fills up the class Github storage very quickly. Only put lab folders under Github if the lab is released through Github and requires submission to the Github repository.

Michael Chen, Undergraduate Assistant of ECE120, SP2020.