Copying Ubuntu onto the SD-card

Download the Ubuntu preinstalled server image and flash it on your sdcard using:

xzcat ubuntu-22.04.2-preinstalled-server-riscv64+visionfive.img.xz | sudo dd bs=1M conv=fsync of=/dev/sdX

You will have to replace /dev/sdX by the actual device name of your SD card. Please, be especially cautious not to overwrite the wrong drive as this cannot be undone.

First boot

Insert the SD card and power on the board.

Don't be impatient when not seeing any HDMI output from the kernel for a few minutes. This is due to the board performance. Early boot output is only available on the serial console which runs at 115200 baud.

For accessing the serial console you can use picocom:

picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0

When booting the first time wait until you see an output line confirming that cloud-init has finished. Cloud init is responsible for generating the SSH keys and setting the default password. Cloud init itself will also need a few minutes. The line to wait for will look similar to

[  150.053340] cloud-init[1274]: Cloud-init v. 23.1.1-0ubuntu2 finished at Mon, 03 Apr 2023 11:14:35 +0000. Datasource DataSourceNoCloud [seed=/var/lib/cloud/seed/nocloud-net][dsmode=net].  Up 150.00 seconds

Now you can login with user ubuntu and the default password ubuntu and will be asked to choose a new password.

Wireless LAN

To use the wireless LAN you have to configure netplan. Find below a simple example of a Netplan configuration file that must be stored in /etc/netplan directory with the extension *.yaml:

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  wifis:
    wlan0:
      dhcp4: yes
      dhcp6: yes
      access-points:
        "YOUR_SSID":
          password: "YOUR_PASSWORD"

Either reboot or execute the following commands to apply the configuration:

sudo netplan apply
sudo systemctl restart systemd-networkd.service

Bluetooth

The firmware required to use Bluetooth on the StarFive VisionFive board currently is only available in a ppa:

Add the RISC-V PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-risc-v-team/release

Install the required packages:

sudo apt install linux-firmware-starfive brcm-patchram-plus-starfive