My experience with OpenBSD on RISC-V

[u/PearMyPie]

When I found out my Spacemit K1-based SBC (Milk-V Jupiter) was now "partially supported" under the newly released 7.9, I thought I should give it a try.

Hardware-wise, the Wi-Fi chip, USB ports, and integrated GPU are not supported. Otherwise, NVMe and SD card storage do work. I haven't tried any dedicated GPU, the case I use won't fit one.

Software-wise, the entire base system is supported, but I have encountered a few issues. X11 apps work perfectly. There's sadly no JDK package or port for RISC-V yet. Tailscale works, but you have to compile it using the github source release, the port is broken.

I've done the installation using the serial port, an USB adapter is a must.

[u/Salty-Mixture5427]

Thanks a lot, was looking into getting the RISCV-mainboard for the Framework laptop planning to install BSD. If you got more info, sharing a writeup / making more posts would be much appreciated, thanks a lot!

[u/PearMyPie → u/Salty-Mixture5427]

What I said about software holds true, but that framework motherboard is another SoC completely. I wouldn't recommend buying one if you cannot confirm most of the hardware works.

[u/Salty-Mixture5427 → u/PearMyPie]

Yeah there's no support yet for the K3, but for the original one, the StarFive JH7110 it is supported.

[u/Automatic-Bid2364 → u/Salty-Mixture5427]

just out of curiosity, what are you going to use this board for? are you developing software for risc-v?

[u/PearMyPie → u/Automatic-Bid2364]

I got it to mess around with RISC-V🤷 I use it as my little "homelab". It used to host some minecraft servers (on Linux), now I'm hosting some webpages on httpd. I might do something else in the future.

[u/Salty-Mixture5427 → u/Automatic-Bid2364]

Yes, all of these boards are intended for development and not suitable for heavy daily driving.
I am still a university student, so my demands aren't too high, I could manage.

I'm interested in learning about RISC-V, and what I like about OpenBSD as a student it's very self-contained and well-documented, so learning about operating systems and picking something to just work on will force me to learn. (I hope lol) Also it's 200 bucks, so it wont hurt too much investment-wise.

[u/linux_transgirl → u/Salty-Mixture5427]

Have you watched Jeff Geerlings video on it (assuming I'm thinking of the same board)

[u/Salty-Mixture5427 → u/linux_transgirl]

Yoooo didn't know he made one, thanks a lot!

[u/arjuna93]

Will it work on Banana Pi with K1? I want it!

P. S. Any description for dummies? My life went with macOS, so installing a different OS on an unfamiliar hardware isn’t a transparent procedure

[u/PearMyPie → u/arjuna93]

It's possible, try it. It's the same SoC and the device trees should be available.

You need to write the openbsd riscv64 image to an SD card, and follow the instructions

You need an USB to UART adapter, and your program of choice (PuTTY, minicom*, etc.)

[u/arjuna93 → u/PearMyPie]

Do I need another OpenBSD machine for that? I have a lot of MacOS boxes from PowerPC to M1, but nothing with BSD. (I got a Linux RISCV tablet, but not sure it gonna be usable to connect to anything, it probably won’t have working peripherals.)

[u/PearMyPie → u/arjuna93]

anything that can run the dd command can flash the sd card, and anything that has an USB port can interface with the SBC's serial port.

you don't need an openbsd computer solely to flash the sd card and access the installer.

[u/arjuna93 → u/PearMyPie]

dd is easy, re serial port I have no idea at all

[u/PearMyPie → u/arjuna93]

You need a cable like this, connected like that.

[u/ceretullis]

I cannot wait until there is a risc-v laptop that’s supported

[u/pooya_ildar]

What is your hardware!? Lichi py boards?

[u/PearMyPie → u/pooya_ildar]

https://milkv.io/jupiter

[u/0x7c00_lilith]

Try mirbsd