Although I have used Raspberry Pi 4 and pico boards, I lack the knowledge on how to set up and boot my new visionfive 2 sbc to a version of Linux.
If it is possible to do so without using the usb to serial connector can someone please let me know a url with the instructions on how to do this.
If it is not possible, can someone please recommend a suitable PC usb to serial connector.
Finally, again a real newbie question , how do I power the device?
Apologies for the dumb questions, I am an ancient, retired dinosaur mainframe (assembler and procedural applications programmer), hardware-newbie and I am trying to teach myself how to use sbcs and Linux etc.
Unfortunately this no longer works with version 69.
How can we easily update SPL and U-Boot?
Does this mean we have to get something like a USB to TTL adapter?
Is there really no way to get access to the MTD partitions to use flashcp with version 55?
Looking at the steps for tftpboot, step 3 has example values for the IP addresses?
setenv ipaddr 192.168.120.222;setenv serverip 192.168.120.99
To get this to work I used a crossover ethernet cable from another linux machine that had the SPL and U-boot on it and connected that to the ethernet port on the VF2.
Otherwise it was wanting a “gatewayip” in addition to an “ipaddr” and “serverip” values with a normal ethernet cable in my case. You can use an 192.168.xxx.yyy value on each end, provided that xxx is the same on both (eg 120 above) - don’t make xxx the same as your current Lan (eg 192.168.0.zzz). To verify the connection I was able to ping in either direction.
Thanks for the alternative solution.
Is the U-boot prompt visible on a monitor on the HDMI port?
If not, how do I connect from the other Linux machine to the VF2?
In other words, which software do I need to use on the other Linux machine, and do I need to do some configuration?
Just to be sure, can I get to the U-Boot prompt by booting without a micro SD?
You don’t use anything via the HDMI port to update u-boot and spl. HDMI from my experience is only useful to see the Linux GUI after booting image 69.
The u-boot prompt is visible inside some kind of terminal emulator (on a Mac I use CoolTerm, I think on Linux minicom is suggested) that you have installed (and setup at 115k bits/sec).
For CoolTerm there was a menu to choose which serial port to conect the program to.
I also bought something cheaper but was having voltage issues so I went and got another Arduino connector from the local electronics shop. Only thing with that board is you need a rarely seen usb cable to connect at the Arduino connector end.
In my case, I was running Parallels on Mac and that prompted every time whether to connect the serial port to Mac, Windows or Linux and so the fact there was a bootable micro-SD gave some pause in the emulator to allow me to “press a key” and cancel going to image 69. Haven’t worked out how to hardwire that particular serial connect in Parallels yet.