RISCV support

EchedeyLR · 2024-10-24 15:38:36

I wanted to ask if there is thought or plan to provide support for RISCV-based computers (now an official arch in Debian starting by 13/Trixie).

Currently, I am playing a bit with a VisionFive2 which is gaining support bit by bit and was looking for a way to get Devuan (because I like the style which differs from Debian).

Camtaf · 2024-10-24 16:24:32

Well, there's no official support for ARM, so I would guess not....

ralph.ronnquist · 2024-10-24 21:32:16

It may depend on what you mean by "Devuan" and "support for".

Technically "Devuan" (as organisation) is merely this small group of people that publish the collection of packages that includes all debian packages except some. Those that require systemd have been forked where possible and they are maintained (by these people) towards providing relevant functionality without systemd; most are forked but a few end up just being excluded from the devuan repositories. Currently supported (i.e. maintained, built and published) architectures are amd64, arm64, armel, armhf, i386, riscv64 and ppc64el (all using debian's architecture labelling).

Though "Devuan" (as organisation) might also be understood to include the people that compose and publish filesystems and disk images that are installations of various kinds using devuan packages. Those works span a more limited range of architectures and they provide support (or not) individually for their published works. I'm aware of people having riscv64 installations of devuan packages but not of anyone publishing such for replication.

stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn · 2025-09-15 07:42:17

@EchedeyLR, how is your VisionFive2 experimentation progressing?

tripole · 2026-02-11 08:17:07

@EchedeyLR

Devuan runs well on the VisionFive 2, at least Excalibur, and it can be installed using the standard bootstrap procedure. The only caveat is that serial console has to be enabled in /etc/inittab. There is a script called debuntu_dbstrap_riscv64.bash at my Gitlab page https://gitlab.com/tripole-inc/bootdisk which you can use to build an image, or you can just rip out the parts you need (the script also builds images for Debian and Ubuntu). There is also a download link to a Devuan Excalibur image for the VF2 on the Gitlab page.

Last edited by tripole (2026-02-11 08:17:36)

fsmithred · 2026-02-11 14:15:34

Is anything here useful? https://pkgmaster.devuan.org/devuan/dis … nt/images/

tripole · 2026-02-11 20:01:09

@fsmithred
Yes, it is definitely useful. I just tried installing to SD using the mini.iso found from the link you provided and it works well. However, it requires some "massage", see below. One of the problems is how to boot the installer on VF2. Therefore, I personally think debootstrapping is better for now (even though also that requires some chroot work etc.)

Example installation to SD (on bare metal VF2): In order to boot the iso I copied it to a USB and booted it on the VF2 via Petitboot that I have on EMMC. (I have u-boot on SPI-flash.) As install target I used an SD which had the partition scheme that VF2's u-boot expects. The installation went fine except that the Devuan installer does not accept to have a boot partition with vfat so I chose ext2 and later ("offline") converted it to vfat. (I booted into another distro on the VF2 and from there updated the UUIDs in fstab and regenerated the initramfs in a chroot). Finally I added an extlinux.conf on the boot partition on the SD. It booted fine (using u-boot on SPI-flash) and seems to run as intended (except for time; I had to install ntpsec).

SInce the Devuan installer works I expect that installation to SD using the installer files ("linux","initrd.gz") in QEMU would also work.

Edit: I was wrong about the difficulty of booting the installer; indeed the installer iso can be booted using u-boot (on SPI-flash), at least if it is mainline u-boot >= 2025.01 since these u-boot versions can do an EFI boot of Grub on the iso, which will bring up the installer. So, copy the the iso to a USB and start the VF2, and interrupt u-boot at the point "Hit any key to interrupt..". Then, at the u-boot prompt, do

# usb start
# usb storage # (useful but not necessary)
# setenv devnum 0
# run usb_boot

and proceed with the install.

Last edited by tripole (2026-02-12 19:05:21)

tripole · 2026-02-13 12:03:52

I have now done also an EFI based Excalibur installation for VF2 on an SD, using the installer mini.iso on a USB. The image on SD can be booted with u-boot (SPI-flash), provided u-boot is a newer version (see post #7 above). There is only one caveat (see further below).

The installer does not seem to provide (easily) to set up an EFI install so I prepared an SD with a standard layout

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048         1026047   500.0 MiB   EF00  EFI system partition
   2         1026048         5220351   2.0 GiB     8200  Linux swap
   3         5220352        62332927   27.2 GiB    8300  Linux filesystem

I then formatted the EFI partition to FAT32 by 'mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdX' (but the Devuan installer will still think this is FAT16, oh well).

Next I started the installer on the VF2 (see e.g. post #7).

I installed as usual (EFI partition mounted on /boot/efi, the ext4 partition on /, and added swap), but just before leaving the installer (where you are asked to reboot) I switched to a terminal (e.g. ctrl-a 2) and there did a 'chroot /target/ bash' (the root / on the SD is mounted under /target/).
At the bash prompt in the chroot jail I did

# apt install ntpsec
# apt install grub-efi-riscv64
# grub-install --efi-directory=/boot/efi
# mkdir /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT
# cp /boot/efi/EFI/debian/grubriscv64.efi /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT/BOOTRISCV64.EFI
# update-grub
# exit # (exit chroot and get back to installer menu)

I rebooted and then stopped u-boot at "Hit any key..." to get to the u-boot prompt.
At the u-boot prompt, I did

# mmc dev 1 # (my SD is on dev 1, eMMC is on dev 0)
# mmc part # (useful but not necessary)
# run mmc_boot

This will bring up the usual Grub menu etc, boot will proceed normally and Bob will be your uncle.

Several things above are from memory so some details may be off.

Caveat: If I boot the installer using u-boot (as described in #7) then I can't move the cursor with the up/down arrows in the main Grub menu (in serial console) so I can't select Advanded (options). If I anyway just go ahead and hit Enter then the default installation method proceeds but it seems to have serious difficulties with mirrors, package files etc (I tried it several times). However, when I boot the installer using Petitboot (thus bypassing Grub) I always choose the second "install" option that appears but I don't know exactly that that is since Petitboot doesn't properly render anything except simple Grub-isms. I think, however, that what I do then (when I select the second "install" option) is that I select some form of "expert install" (but it looks like the normal installer flow). Anyway, that works like a charm.

This reference is helpful: https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebia … sionFiveV2

I hope someone else will help straighten out the quirks here so that a smooth installation procedure for the VF2 emerges. (Perhaps it already exists and I'm just being ignorant.)

Edit: Some clarifications.

Edit (260214): Good news (mostly). If you have a newer u-boot (>= 2025.01) and you have reset the u-boot env to default, then USB is the default boot method for removable devices (and works w/ EFI setup). Thus, if you put the installer on USB and install to another USB the finished Devuan install will boot automagically. (Choose your mirror wisely and use 115200 as serial speed.) There are remaining caveats, however. One is that the Grub related chroot work I outlined above (just before you leave the installer) seems to be needed. (From the installer log: grub-installer: GRUB is only usable on EFI riscv64 systems, not riscv64/generic.) Another is that the dtb for VF2 that is on the mini.iso does not seem to give stable eth connections. (When I boot the installer via Petitboot then the dtb used by PB is inherited after the kexec boot into the Devuan installer, and then a standard install runs w/o problems.)

Last edited by tripole (2026-02-14 11:55:34)

tripole · 2026-02-15 16:07:23

I will now sum up my findings (and then stop spamming this thread).

Devuan can be installed on the VisionFive 2 (v1.3b) with an EFI/Grub setup without problems using the mini.iso (see #6 above) copied to a USB. The installed system runs as intended.

The only (recommended) deviations from a normal install path are (i) use expert install, (ii) pre partition the target media with an EFI/ESP partition and (iii) use manual partitioning. (When using expert mode you will be asked to install Grub but not when using standard mode, it seems. In the latter case you need to go through the chroot steps outlined in #8 above.)

The above has been tested with Excalibur and install target on USB and nvme.

Several of the things I wrote/concluded in previous posts are u-boot dependent (and thus only apply to my particular setup). With a newer version of u-boot the install and management is simpler; in particular one can then use the bootflow command.

It is recommended to install a newer upstream/mainline version of u-boot >= 2025.01 and to reset u-boot env. (I'm on u-boot 2025.10 with openSBI 1.6 now.) It is also recommended to compile u-boot with a complete bootflow command, see https://docs.u-boot.org/en/latest/usage … tflow.html If you don't want to compile u-boot yourself, follow Debian's steps in the link in post #8. (The Debian pkg with u-boot for VF2 may however have the plain bootflow command, IDK.)

Notes: Cursor up/down problems in serial console (e.g. tio) can sometimes be resolved by deattaching the serial console, resetting the underlying terminal and then reattaching the serial console. (VF2 expects speed 115200.) There is a bug affecting u-boot's usb stability on the VF2 https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/ … 03599.html The workaround is to first do a "usb reset" before any usb commands at the u-boot prompt.

Edit (260216): Freia works too; tested install to nvme. (Had to manually edit /etc/inittab and set

S0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 115200 screen

to get serial console working).

Last edited by tripole (Yesterday 10:11:30)

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#1 2024-10-24 15:38:36

RISCV support

#2 2024-10-24 16:24:32

Re: RISCV support

#3 2024-10-24 21:32:16

Re: RISCV support

#4 2025-09-15 07:42:17

Re: RISCV support

#5 2026-02-11 08:17:07

Re: RISCV support

#6 2026-02-11 14:15:34

Re: RISCV support

#7 2026-02-11 20:01:09

Re: RISCV support

#8 2026-02-13 12:03:52

Re: RISCV support

#9 2026-02-15 16:07:23

Re: RISCV support

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