RISC-V

Revision 12 as of 2021-02-05 13:26:58

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Ubuntu provides riscv64 architecture for the RISC-V platform since Focal release.

Images

One can boot it on any system with qemu-system, or on bare-metal board such as those built by SiFive.

Forums

You can discuss Ubuntu on RISC-V over at the Ubuntu Server forums.

Booting with qemu

Prerequisites:

  • apt install qemu-system-misc opensbi u-boot-qemu qemu-utils

After installing the above prerequisites, one can use any of the above images to boot virtua>

First unpack the image

xz -dk focal-preinstalled-server-riscv64.img.xz

Optionally, if you want larger disk, you can expand the disk (filesystem will be automatical>

qemu-img resize focal-preinstalled-server-riscv64.img +5G

Next use OpenSBI bootloader & u-boot-qemu to boot the virtual machine

Working example with all the options is:

qemu-system-riscv64 \
-machine virt -m 2048 -smp 4 \
-bios /usr/lib/riscv64-linux-gnu/opensbi/generic/fw_jump.elf \
-kernel /usr/lib/u-boot/qemu-riscv64_smode/uboot.elf \
-device virtio-net-device,netdev=eth0 -netdev user,id=eth0 \

The important options to use are:

  • Machine type virt aka -machine virt

  • Bios is OpenSBI -bios /usr/lib/riscv64-linux-gnu/opensbi/generic/fw_jump.elf

  • "kernel" is qemu smode uboot -kernel /usr/lib/u-boot/qemu-riscv64_smode/uboot.elf

One can use pass through networking, adjust memory (-m) & cpu counts (-smp) as needed.

Switch to the serial console, wait for cloud-init to complete, then login using ubuntu:ubuntu. See the cloud-init section below to further customise the first boot behaviour with cloud-init.

Booting on SiFive HiFive Unleashed board

The above image has U-Boot SPL loader as well as SiFive U-Boot to boot on the board.

Set jumpers to boot from the microSD by setting MSEL=1011 (MSEL2 to the outside of the board, the rest to the inside).

You can then use "Gnome Disks" app to restore img.xz image onto the microSD card, plug it into the board and boot.

You can also use cmdline to extract the image and dd it.

xz -dk focal-preinstalled-server-riscv64.img.xz
dd if=focal-preinstalled-server-riscv64.img of=/dev/disk/by-id/<TAB><TAB>complete-to-sdcard-device

Monitor serial console, wait for cloud-init to complete, then login using ubuntu:ubuntu. See the cloud-init section below to further customise the first boot behaviour with cloud-init.

cloud-init integration

The image has a fallback cloud-init datasource that configures sudo user ubuntu with password ubuntu and DHCP networking. You will be asked to change the password on first login.

The image has CIDATA partition which can be used as a valid datasource to adjust cloud-config metadata. If you wish to customize user password, networking information, add ssh keys, etc. Please mount CIDATA partition rename meta-data and user-data files and adjust them to taste. You can use network-info to configure networking if something more sophisticated than just DHCP is desired.

For example ssh keys, disabling interactive login, and so on. See https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest