This page provides instructions how to install Fedora 40 (or newer) on StarFive VisionFive 2 (JH7110) SBC. The instructions assume that main partitions will be on M.2 NVMe. microSD card is not required, but can be used to flash SPI-NOR firmware with a new U-Boot and OpenSBI.

This guide assumes that your host system is running Fedora 40 (or newer).

Installing SPI-NOR firmware via UART boot mode

This method allows to boot upstream U-Boot SPL (XMODEM) and U-Boot proper (YMODEM) using your serial console. This is especially helpful is SPI-NOR content is damaged and the board no longer boots. Once booted you can flash SPI-NOR with a new firmware images.

SPI-NOR partitions:

# cat /proc/mtd
dev:    size   erasesize  name
mtd0: 00080000 00010000 "spl"
mtd1: 00010000 00010000 "uboot-env"
mtd2: 00400000 00010000 "uboot"
mtd3: 00a00000 00010000 "reserved-data"

[..]
partitions {
        compatible = "fixed-partitions";
        #address-cells = <1>;
        #size-cells = <1>;

        spl@0 {
                reg = <0x0 0x80000>;
        };
        uboot-env@f0000 {
                reg = <0xf0000 0x10000>;
        };
        uboot@100000 {
                reg = <0x100000 0x400000>;
        };
        reserved-data@600000 {
                reg = <0x600000 0xa00000>;
        };
};
[..]

Make sure your board is powered down.

Connect UART-Serial to USB dongle to VF2 using GPIO headers (3V3):

PIN 6: GND
PIN 8: UART-TX
PIN 10: UART-RX

More details here: https://doc-en.rvspace.org/VisionFive2/Quick_Start_Guide/VisionFive2_SDK_QSG/recovering_bootloader%20-%20vf2.html

Check dmesg or usb-devices output for a new device (could be written as "UART", "Serial", etc.).

Your USB serial port adapter will be /dev/ttyUSB<NUMBER> and /dev/serial/by-id/<NAME>. The latter name is generated base d on vendor, product name, serial code of your USB serial port adapter.

These devices are in dialout group. If you don't want to use sudo and your user to this group:

usermod -aG dialout <USERNAME>

We will use minicom for serial console. Let's launch it with minicom -s for setup:

 +-----[configuration]------+
 | Filenames and paths      |
 | File transfer protocols  |
 | Serial port setup        |
 | Modem and dialing        |
 | Screen and keyboard      |
 | Save setup as dfl        |
 | Save setup as..          |
 | Exit                     |
 | Exit from Minicom        |
 +--------------------------+

Select Serial port setup. Press A and modify the path for your USB serial port adapter. Hit ENTER until you return to the original menu. Then choose Exit to start.

Switch the board to UART boot mode:

 1 (High)  0 (Low)                
┌───────┐ ┌───────┐               
│XXXXXXX│ │       │ RGPIO_1: 1 (H)
└───────┘ └───────┘               
┌───────┐ ┌───────┐               
│XXXXXXX│ │       │ RGPIO_0: 1 (H)
└───────┘ └───────┘

More details here: https://doc-en.rvspace.org/VisionFive2/Boot_UG/VisionFive2_SDK_QSG/boot_mode_settings.html?hl=uart

Let's use microSD card with FAT or ext4 partition to store new firmware files:

u-boot-spl.bin.normal.out (U-Boot SPL) [REQUIRED]
u-boot.itb (U-Boot, OpenSBI, DTB) [REQUIRED]
uboot-env.bin (default U-Boot environment in binary format) [OPTIONAL]

All required files can be found in uboot-images-riscv64 (noarch) package. It's also installed in the disk image.

Insert the card to the board, and power it on.

Search

Architectures/RISC-V/VisionFive2

Installing SPI-NOR firmware via UART boot mode