Steps 6.11-rc6 with external GPU

put all the downloads in one directory. In this example it is /home/opvolger/demo

download OpenSuse VisionFive2 image

download it to /home/opvolger/demo

flash img to eMMC (I used balenaEtcher, but dd or an other tool will work)

download the kernel 6.11 or newer

For this example i use 6.11-rc6

$ cd /home/opvolger/demo
$ tar -xvzf linux-6.11-rc6.tar.gz

get the linux-firmware blobs

We do not want history so --depth 1

$ cd /home/opvolger/demo
$ git clone --depth 1 git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git

set config file make linux kernel

$ cd linux-6.11-rc6
$ make CROSS_COMPILE=riscv64-linux-gnu- ARCH=riscv menuconfig

Select the next kernel options

Device Drivers
└─>Generic Driver Options
    └─>Firmware loader
      () Build named firmware blobs into the kernel binary
      (../linux-firmware) Firmware blobs root directory

In the Build named firmware blobs into the kernel binary, you will need to add your blobs of your AMD video card. In my case it was the hawaii (R2 290) blobs. For example the 200-series you can find you “blob-names: on wikipedia

If you do not have the correct blobs, you can see it with the commands following after booting:

$ journalctl -b | grep radeon
$ journalctl -b | grep amdgpu
$ journalctl -b | grep firmware

Than you can change it and rebuild the kernel.

Change Firmware blobs root directory to ../linux-firmware

radeon/hawaii_pfp.bin radeon/hawaii_me.bin radeon/hawaii_ce.bin radeon/hawaii_mec.bin radeon/hawaii_mc.bin radeon/hawaii_rlc.bin radeon/hawaii_sdma.bin radeon/hawaii_smc.bin radeon/hawaii_k_smc.bin radeon/HAWAII_pfp.bin radeon/HAWAII_me.bin radeon/HAWAII_ce.bin radeon/HAWAII_mec.bin radeon/HAWAII_mc.bin radeon/HAWAII_mc2.bin radeon/HAWAII_rlc.bin radeon/HAWAII_sdma.bin radeon/HAWAII_smc.bin

Device Drivers
└─>Block devices
      <*> RAM block device support

Linux Kernel Configuration
└─>Device Drivers
    └─>Input device support
        └─>Event interface

Linux Kernel Configuration
└─>Device Drivers
  └─>Graphics support
    └─>Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support)
      <*> ATI Redeon
      <*> AMD GPU

Device Drivers
└─>Sound card support
  └─>Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
    └─>HD-Audio
        <*> HD Audio PCI
        <*> Build HDMI/DisplayPort HD-audio codec support

File systems  -> [HIT ENTER]
└─>Miscellaneous filesystems -> [HIT ENTER]
  └─> <*> SquashFS 4.0 - Squased file system support [HIT SPACE 2x]
      [*] Squashfs XATTR support [HIT SPACE]
      [*] Include support for ZLIB compressed file systems
      [*] Include support for LZ4 compressed file systems [HIT SPACE]
      [*] Include support for LZO compressed file systems [HIT SPACE]
      [*] Include support for XZ compressed file systems [HIT SPACE]
      [*] Include support for ZSTD compressed file systems [HIT SPACE]

After all the kernel options, I want to edit the .config file. I only want modules in the kernel, so I don’t need a ramdrive (or can use one of older kernel).

I use vscode to edit my .config file. but feel free to use your own editor

$ code .config

Replace all =m for =y. So all modules will be within the kernel.

Now it is time to build the kernel

$ make ARCH=riscv CROSS_COMPILE=riscv64-linux-gnu- -j 16

This can take a while

I mounted the eMMC, and the directory is /run/media/opvolger/ROOT. So i copy my kernel and dtb to /run/media/opvolger/ROOT

$ sudo cp arch/riscv/boot/Image.gz /run/media/opvolger/ROOT/boot/linux6-11-rc6
$ sudo cp arch/riscv/boot/dts/starfive/jh7110-starfive-visionfive-2-v1.3b.dtb /run/media/opvolger/ROOT/boot/dtb-6.11-rc6

$ cd /run/media/opvolger/ROOT
$ sudo nano boot.cmd

Now create the boot.cmd, so we don’t have to give this long command in u-boot.

load mmc 0:3 ${kernel_addr_r} /boot/linux6-11-rc6
load mmc 0:3 ${fdt_addr_r} /boot/dtb-6.11-rc6
load mmc 0:3 ${ramdisk_addr_r} /boot/initrd
setenv bootargs 'root=/dev/mmcblk0p3 rw console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200 earlycon rootwait stmmaceth=chain_mode:1 selinux=0'
booti $kernel_addr_r $ramdisk_addr_r:$filesize $fdt_addr_r

create a boot.source:

$ sudo mkimage -C none -A riscv -T script -d boot.cmd boot.scr

We can now unplug the eMMC from the pc and click it to the VisionFive 2.

Poweron VisionFive 2

Poweron you VisionFive 2 after you have make a serial connection.

$ screen -L /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

Boot the VisionFive 2 and break the boot process

Now we can load the boot source we created. We put it on partion 3, so we can load.

load mmc 0:3 ${scriptaddr} boot.scr; source ${scriptaddr}

The first boot will take some time (make root partition bigger etc.)

You can now log in with username root and password linux

riscv login: root
Password: 
Have a lot of fun...

Create an user

# create a user
$ useradd opvolger

# set password for user
$ passwd opvolger
New password: 
Retype new password: 
passwd: password updated successfully

# update repo's
$ zypper update

# install stuff
$ zypper install opi neofetch chromium nano libcurl-devel git SDL2-devel git openal-soft-devel libvpx-devel alsa-devel flac-devel
# install codecs (with errors, not all codes are allready on mainline for risc-v) option 2
$ opi codecs
# install KDE-desktop
$ zypper install -t pattern kde kde_plasma

$ reboot

- Steps 6.11-rc6 with external GPU