VisionFive 2 : A real computer

Purchase

Low cost RISC-V boards continue to be released with improved capabilities.  The story so far:
Allwinner Nezha 22nd June 2021
Sipeed Lichee RV 16th December 2021
MangoPi MQ-Pro 10th August 2022
Sipeed M1S 22nd December 2022
StarFive VisionFive2 delivered 7th February 2023

The latest offering, VisionFive 2 (VF2) was announced on kickstater and I subscribed on 25AUG22.

The RISC-V Telegram group were enthusiastic about the new board.  It has more power and much more memory than previous boards and is probably equivalent to a RPI3, so it is just suitable for desktop use.  

I ordered an "Earlybird" edition with 8GB RAM for about £70.  It is a good price for a RISC-V system with that much memory.  I could have requested a "Super Earlybird" edition for delivery in December but a February delivery suited me better.

Preparation

I wanted it to be a rewarding installation experience so I have waited a few weeks before installation to make sure I have everything I need and know what to do.  I kept an eye on the Telegram RISC-V forum which reported problems with the two early images + firmware which were released in December.
Fortunately a new image and Quick Start Guide were released on 28th February so I was able to take advantage of an easier install path.

There appears to be plenty of documentation available at rvspace.org together with tools and code on github.

I followed the Quick Start Guide to download the latest image (202302) from Google Cloud and saved it to an SD card using Balena Etcher.

Installation

I connected the VF2 to power, HDMI screen and a keyboard.  I also started a PC Putty session using an FTDI serial convertor.  There are a couple of dip switches on the board to choose where to boot from so I set them as RGPIO_0=1 and RGPIO_1=0 for an SD card boot.  Turning on power it was great to immediately see an SBI boot sequence startup.

After about 30 seconds I was able to signin on the console and shortly after I saw the Debian signon screen on the HDMI monitor.  I was able to sign on to both of them for an initial look around the system.

Conclusion

This is a great addition to my collection.  I should be able to add it permanently in to my system, perhaps as a RISC-V development programming environment.  A future installment will cover configuration and usage.