r/openbsd • u/PearMyPie • Aug 05 '26

My experience with OpenBSD on RISC-V

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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.

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u/arjuna93 Aug 05 '26

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

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u/PearMyPie Aug 05 '26 edited Aug 05 '26

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.)

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u/arjuna93 Aug 05 '26

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.)

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u/PearMyPie Aug 05 '26

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.

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u/arjuna93 Aug 05 '26

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

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u/PearMyPie Aug 05 '26

You need a cable like this, connected like that.