Experimental debian sid image

@hexdump0815, thanks for your great Debian image! It works very well!

In the next update of the image please do not forget to utilize all 8 Gb of RAM.
See this github comment for solution, or apply latest patches from VF2_v2.10.4 tag.

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@N0rbert - thanks for the positive feedback … i took a note of that link, but i prefer to simply put the latest u-boot+sbi onto the next image, so that it can boot from sd card alone using that and i hope the latest firmware mentioned by you fixes those memory detection problems

its quite funny: with the first update of the firmware files my 4gb vf2 detected its memory as 8gb and of course crashed when it tried to use it later - so the problem was the other way around that i had to add an mem=4000k to my cmdline :slight_smile:

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I rebased the StarFive kernel (latest commit at time of writing) onto upstream Linux 5.15.98: GitHub - MichaIng/linux
Only trivial conflict resolving was required. Find affected commits with:

git log --all --grep='Signed-off-by: MichaIng <micha@dietpi.com>'

Most were even just internal commit inconsistencies, respectively when a commit which caused a conflict was later reverted.

When this builds and boots/works fine, next I’ll have a look at your patches. Will also keep rebasing it on upstream (5.15.99 was just released) and merging StarFive commits as they are coming.

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Trying this out now.

If anyone was wondering, this image DOES NOT work when flashed to and booted from the eMMC (whereas StarFive’s “Debian Image 202302” does boot from eMMC).

Flashing this Experimental Debian Sid Image to SD card now. I will report back.

please be aware that it does not work with the latest sbi/u-boot firmware as that changed the expected partition setup - i plan to update it accordingly for it but did not get to it yet

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I’ll wait for your next image to come out of the oven and then I will try it. Thanks!

@hexdump0815
I see you added support PCIe GPU · Icenowy/linux@04e31c2 · GitHub as patch to your image. Is this a solution to How to use external gpu on VisionFive v2, or do I misunderstand the purpose of the patch?

And could you explain what drm/dc8200: disable gamma lut now · Icenowy/linux@75bd30a · GitHub fixes, if anything but a warning during compiling?

We have a missing green channel when starting an X session, which is resolved by re-applying resolution settings. I was hoping that this gets solved by one of the patches out there.

@MichaIng - sorry i cannot say for sure what those patches are doing and how well they are (not?) working … i was just looking quickly at them and i thought that they maybe are usefull to bring in as well as i know icenowy as a very good and reliable developer from around allwinner socs - maybe just ask icenowy directly?

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Okay makes sense, also to assure that those patches/commits apply for the VisionFive 2 the same way they apply for Star64. Same SoC but not same PCB components, of course.

But all 64 of the GPIO pins underneath the SOC can, and probably will due to full multiplexing, be configured to any function to make the different PCB layouts simpler for each board.

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UPDATE: a new version of this image is now available at Release 230321-02 - experimental debian sid image for the starfive visionfive2 riscv64 sbc · hexdump0815/imagebuilder · GitHub

i finally found the time to build a new experimental debian sid image using the same kernel version, boot blocks and partition schema as the starfive 202302 debian image … the kernel was built and the image assembled on my vf2 running a system based on my last image :slight_smile: … this new image contains sbi/u-boot in its boot blocks (taken from the 202302 starfive debian image) so that the sd card can boot directly if the dip switches are set to “sd” boot, otherwise (default spi boot) the latest firmware will have to be installed to boot this image properly

some more notes:

  • for more info see: imagebuilder/systems/starfive_visionfive2 at main · hexdump0815/imagebuilder · GitHub
  • based on debian sid/unstable riscv64 port
  • the v5.15 kernel used is based on VF2_v2.10.4 of the starfive visionfive2 kernel tree and some patches from the icenowy star64 kernel tree
  • framebuffer console added (part of the patches mentioned above)
  • a v5.15 backport of mglru added (multigen lru mm patches, which were merged into v6.1 mainline and improve performance especially in low memory situations)
  • has some features typical for the images here: btrfs rootfs with zstd compression, zswap with zstd compression, mgrlu enabled by default
  • please switch the dip switches on the board to “sd”, i.e. upper one (marked rgpio_1) to 0 (marked ON on the dip switch, i.e. default setting) and lower one (marked rgpio_0) to 1 (marked 2 on the dip switch, i.e. oposite to the default setting) to boot directly from the sd card as this image has sbi/u-boot included in its boot blocks (taken from the 202302 starfive debian image)
  • small erratum: a leftover /debootstrap directory which can be deleted
  • username/password is as usual linux/changeme

see also the first post of this thread for some more information about this image

good luck and best wishes - hexdump

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Great to hear this, I’ll try this image the next days! Keep up the good work!

Kind regards,

Lars

Are the powervr gpu drivers there as well?

no - this is just a first step to adjust to the new partition schema - otherwise the image is close to the old one

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Is there a way to tell the kernel I’ve a 8GB version? Setting `mem=8000M’ in the kernel command line appears not to do anything. Still end up with 4GB RAM.

And thanks, awesome bit of work, even with 4GB.

@stronnag - thanks a lot … i think this should maybe help: Experimental debian sid image - #41 by N0rbert i.e. Device trees limit Linux to 4GB of RAM on 8GB devices · Issue #20 · starfive-tech/VisionFive2 · GitHub … i’m running it on the 4gb model, so i cannot check it myself - please let me know if this works for you

good luck and best wishes - hexdump

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Thanks for the reference. Due to naming differences, the dtc compile line ends up as:
dtc -I dts -O dtb -o /boot/dtb-5.15.0-vf2-104+/starfive/jh7110-visionfive-v2.dtb vf2.dts
Then one ends up with 8GB on capable HW. Excellent.

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@hexdump0815
Hello dear friends…
I have acer chromebook tab 10 - (gru-scarlet).
I want to convert it to android os.
can any one help me and I will pay for that.

@obaidi2005 - this is the visionfive2 risc-v sbc forum, so i would say the completely wrong place for this …

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I am so sorry sir
can you guide me where i will find some one helping me