VisionFive 2 Debian Image 202302 Released

VisionFive 2 Debian Image 202302 has been released. here is the simple release notes. please check the wiki page for more detail: VisionFive 2 Debian Wiki - 202302 Release | RVspace

Tips: Debian Image 69 will not boot if you upgrade firmware to v2.10.4, so please flash new Debian Image and boot it from TF/eMMC directly based on bootmode switch position;

Image Download link: https://debian.starfivetech.com/

What’s New

  • Supported SBC: VF2 v1.2A and v1.3B
  • Based on Linux kernel 5.15 (VisionFive2 Software tag: v2.6.0);
  • Based on StarFive U-Boot tag v2.10.4;
  • Upgraded Debian snapshot from 20220616T194833Z to 20221225T084846Z
  • Added ESWIN 6600U WiFi Dongle support;
  • Added HDMI audio support;
  • Upgraded OpenSSL to version 3.0.7;
  • Added SD/eMMC boot flow feature;
  • openssh-server package is now removed from the image by default;
  • Only the minimal image will be provided. A shell script is provided to get the additional packages from StarFive;

Known Issues / Limitation

  • 4K resolution is not working in X
  • XFCE desktop resizing slowness
  • 1080p60 video playback issue
  • libreoffice slowness using gtk3
  • Mosaic pictures after login
  • xeglinfo crashes X server
  • Qt modules qtwebengine failed to build
  • Firefox hardware acceleration is not working
  • NWjs Filesystem access APIs failed.
  • NWjs mp3 encoder failed to be detected
  • Hang after awhile in dual display [MIPI+HDMI]
  • 4K monitor does not display properly
  • First login will prompt back to login page
  • Failure on multi-channel MJPEG decoding by GStreamer

Fixed Issues

  • The boot partition will now use ‘/boot/’ instead of ‘/boot/boot’;
  • FFmpeg & GStreamer plug-in issues;
  • v4l2 pipeline issue;
14 Likes

Great work!


The boot partition will now use ‘/boot/’ instead of ‘/boot/boot’;

This bothered me more than I would admit :slight_smile:

P.S. Will there ever be a Fedora image?

3 Likes

Thanks for the update. What about the GPU? When will it be open sourced?

1 Like

That timing is really up to Imagination Technologies and not StarFive.

Ref:

And:

5 Likes

Alright I see thanks. I asked because I was looking to buy another VF2 but it still not opensourced gpu.

Does this mean we wont have SSH connectivity to headless installs?

Hmmm

Just took another VF2 board, flashed an SD card with the new image, use RS232 to update OpenSBI and uboot, and I’m greated with that:

## Warning: defaulting to text format
Can't set block device
libfdt fdt_check_header(): FDT_ERR_BADMAGIC
Retrieving file: /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
Can't set block device
Error reading config file

u-boot is not latest it could be, but is fairly recent:

StarFive # version
U-Boot 2021.10 (Jan 19 2023 - 04:09:41 +0800), Build: jenkins-github_visionfive2-6

riscv64-buildroot-linux-gnu-gcc.br_real (Buildroot VF2_v2.8.0) 10.3.0
GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.36.1
StarFive #

I suspect that this new image come with a new but incompatible version of uboot?
You should really put both u-boot-spl.bin.normal.out and visionfive2_fw_payload.img along the image download with a big warning that these probably be needed to be updated before the image will work.

And updated OpenSBI & Uboot with the versions from Release VisionFive2 Software v2.10.4 · starfive-tech/VisionFive2 · GitHub

And it is now booting :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Did you change the boot switches to the SDIO3.0 position. Because then it should read the latest u-boot-spl.bin.normal.out (SPL) and the fw_payload.img (OpenSBI + U-Boot) directly from the SD card if you are using the starfive-jh7110-202302-SD-minimal-desktop.img.

1 Like

Oh, so the switch work now? I’m using the recommended setting from the last time I setup a board with when looking at the board with the USB port in front, both switches on the right side :slight_smile:

Will change the SD setting once I finished setup the rootfs

1 Like

That is how I interpreted this:

When looking at the boot flow diagram.

1 Like

Yup sounds sensible :slight_smile:

Confirmed - this works. Thank you.

2 Likes

Gents,

If the switch is working now could you please check if it is now possible to from nvme ssd?
By boot from nvme ssd I mean boot from SPI Flash that will look for OS image at nvme ssd.

Thanks

Kernel needs to be somewhere not nvme, as u-boot still does not have pci-e support.

For now, I load kernel from sd with root= pointing to nvme. It’s not a terrible solution.

I could put the kernel at the end of the SPI, where there is enough storage, but I would still need the sd, as u-boot configuration is held there. There’s space reserved in SPI for u-boot env, but it is not being used currently.

Using the sd as a clutch until pci-e support is in place seems to be the better solution for now.

2 Likes

you can use ssh by this way.
Enable SSH Root Login (rvspace.org)

1 Like

That is something WIP by the engineering team, some codes are in place, but we don’t have a commit date internally yet.

1 Like

@kira
I think you are missing the point if you think my problem with this is not knowing how to use apt install.

@easytarget
i might know what you mean, i didnot try like that way. sorry.