¶ Introduction
Welcome to StarFive's VisionFive 2 - Debian Wiki!
¶ Debian
Your VisionFive 2 will need an operating system to work.
Currently, StarFive provides a pre-built Debian image for users to flash into SD/eMMC and NVME.
Debian is an open-source GNU/Linux distribution created by the Debian community.
Debian Official WebPage: Debian
¶ 202409 Release Notes
From 202308 release onwards, we use Gnome Wayland as the default windowing system. We've also included by default, FFmpeg, Firefox and VLC in the image.
Note: Although 4K@30fps is supported and we have improved the desktop performance, there is still frame drop issue during video playback. Thus, it is recommended to switch to 1080p60 resolution for a smooth video playback experience.
¶ Image Information
Linux Kernel: 5.15.0 & 6.6.20 (VisionFive2 kernel tag: v5.13.1)
U-boot: StarFive U-Boot tag v5.13.1
Debian Snapshot date: 20221225T084846Z and 20230612T050707Z
Note:
- Advised to update the u-boot binary if booting from QSPI to support multi-kernel switching at bootmenu.
Please avoid runningapt upgradeas it will override the existing customized mesa and linux-libc-dev versions provided.
¶ Enhancement and bug fixes
Generic
- Support SarFive Debian official archive;
- Support Debian-port snapshot 20230612T050707Z;
- Support update old images by StarFive Debian repository;
- Support automatic disk expansion during system startup;
Packages
- adb:
- Add adbd component to SarFive Debian repository;
- firefox:
- Update version to 119.0.1-1;
- gnome:
- Install the improved-osk-gnome extension by default;
- lmprove preview performance on setting;
- LibreOffice:
- Update version to 24.2.0-3;
- linux-header:
- Fix “exec format error” in some compilation cases;
- vf2-spl-uboot:
- Support update u-boot binary on Debian system;
Note: For new packages, please refer to the ‘StarFive Packages’ section below for installation details.
¶ Known Issues
- Chromium FFmpeg is not working;
- NVME image occasionally has a slow boot time;
- Qt modules qtwebengine failed to build;
- NWjs Filesystem access APIs failed;
- NWjs mp3 encoder failed to be detected;
- Libcamera-raw and libcamera-vid saving 480P raw and mjpeg files will appear random stripes;
- Libcamera has obvious noises on the full screen of the desktop;
- Desktop UI is not very suitable for portrait screen;
- Vulkan CTS;
¶ What's Next - WIP
Upgrade Debian snapshot to 20230612;Update FireFox version;- Debian-Installer support - Could support both SD + eMMC boot in single image;
- Vulkan support;
¶ VisionFive v2 Debian Download Link
Link for Image Download: VisionFive v2 Debian
As of now 2024, the latest release is the 202409 Release, which can be found in Engineering Release/202409 in the link above.
¶ Images
For this release, we will releasing SD boot, eMMC boot and NVME boot version.
- SD boot: starfive-jh7110-202409-SD-minimal-desktop-wayland.img.bz2
- eMMC boot: starfive-jh7110-202409-eMMC-minimal-desktop-wayland.img.bz2
- NVME boot: starfive-jh7110-202409-nvme-minimal-desktop-wayland.img.bz2
¶ Boot Mode Settings
On VisionFive 2, there are several boot modes available, which include:
- QSPI boot
- SDIO boot
- eMMC boot
- UART (recovery mode)
The following figure displays the location and the pin definitions of the boot mode settings:
¶ StarFive Packages
The Debian image provided is a rather clean image with minimal package installation for having a small image size. Hence, you will need to download the packages with apt or apt-get .
Some packages particular are not available to download via apt/apt-get, and is provided by StarFive, which includes:
- Node.js 18.0.0
- v8 10.2.154.13
- libsdl2
- QT 5.15.2
- Firefox 119.0.1-1
- Libreoffice 24.2.0-3
- NW.js
- FFmpeg
- GStreamer
- Multimedia
- v4l2test (This is a custom shell script to use the CSI camera)
- Chromium 103
- VLC 3.0.18
- OpenPLC
- OpenCV
- libcamera-apps
- libcamera
- Mesa
- gnome-shell
- cogl
- codec (OpenMax)
- Clutter-gst
Debian Repo for StarFive Packages: Github Link
There is a script prepared so that you can install the packages (and its runtime dependencies) with the run of a script. You will just need to run:
wget https://github.com/starfive-tech/Debian/releases/download/v0.14.0-engineering-release-wayland/install_full.sh
chmod +x install_full.sh
./install_full.shThis script will help to install the packages provided by StarFive. Feel free to customize the script to suit your needs.
¶ After Booting
¶ Resizing Partition after boot
When you initially boot into the image, the rootfs partition will not be fully utilized. Hence, you will need to extend the partition size.
You can use terminal tools such as ‘fdisk’ and ‘resize2fs’ commands to resize the rootfs partition.
Please refer to this document: Extending Partition
¶ Updating U-boot
Refer to Quick start Guide for updating u-boot
or
wget https://github.com/starfive-tech/Debian/releases/download/v0.14.0-engineering-release-wayland/StarFive-Debian-Upgrade.sh
sudo ./StarFive-Debian-Upgrade.sh
¶ Updating Linux Kernel in Image
Install dependencies to build kernel
apt-get install build-essential linux-source bc kmod cpio flex libncurses5-dev libelf-dev libssl-dev dwarves bison gitClone the kernel from StarFive Github
git clone https://github.com/starfive-tech/linuxCheckout the desired kernel version
git checkout <tag version>Build the kernel with bindeb-pkg
cd linux/
cp arch/riscv/configs/starfive_visionfive2_defconfig .config
make ARCH=riscv olddefconfig
make ARCH=riscv -j$(nproc) bindeb-pkgOnce the compile is finished, install the .deb kernel packages
dpkg -i *.debNote: currently the dtbs are not synced once you installed a different version of kernel, you'll need to copy over the dtbs from /usr/lib/linux-image-<custom version>/ to /boot/dtbs/
¶ Additional References
Please refer to Debian User Guide for your reference
Please refer to Build Debian Image for your reference
Please refer to VisionFive 2 Doc space for more details
Please refer to Application Center for more application guide on VisionFive 2
¶ Tested Component
4K monitor
| Brand | Model |
| DELL | U2723QE |
| DELL | S3221QS |
| DELL | U2720QM |
| SAMSUNG | S27A800UJC |
| LG | 27UP850 |
| LG | 27UL650 |
| BENQ | PD27006U |
| Haier | MOOKA U75A6 |
| Redmi | RMMNT27NU |
| Xiaomi | L75M9-SP |
| Eimio | Eimio E16U |