VisionFive2 setup newbie

Community RISC-V
1

Greetings,

I’m trying to follow the instructions at VisionFive2 | youyeetoo wiki .
I installed Windows on a laptop, just so that I could follow these instructions as illustrated.

So I have my image burned to an SD card, which is Guix System, as per Download latest — GNU Guix

I’ve wired the TTL to USB connector exactly as illustrated. However when I connect it to either my Windows laptop or one of my Linux laptops, neither machine can see this adapter. For instance, nothing changes even at the command line in Linux with lsblk.
All my wires are carefully connected to the board inside the youyeetoo case and powered on.

Something I’ve noticed is that my TTL to USB connector looks a bit different than the one pictured, but with the same number of pins. Another observation is that when the adapter is powered, I have one blue and one red LED on. Is this correct?

pfd

2

If it is the case that USB to TTL is not recognized on Windows, then try installing the driver.
CH340 or CP210X

https://sparks.gogo.co.nz/ch340.html?srsltid=AfmBOor5KCCqwStsMEYelUCwi_JKi2uf8GazBrpJ1ONE8LFCEVQ7TtxU

For more other references, see here:

3

Hi CharlesChen,
OK, I installed the CH340 driver. I see it in Device Manager. I connected to that port with MobaXTerm as instructed by the wiki page. My CH340 port is COM4. I have have the MobaXterm terminal screen, but it’s blank.

Within the instruction line:
“Access network cable and power supply, in U-boot print to the illustrated position to try, press any key to enter the device tree switch”
is U-boot something extra I need to install, or is U-boot that XTerm terminal. I tried the re-set buttom on the board. I tried re-powering the board, but I get nothing in the Xterm screen. BTW, the colours on the TTL to USB device are blue and red, not green and red, as I mentioned initially.

4

Is it necessary to have WSL2 installed for MobaXTerm to function correctly?

5

No.

Please show

  1. your hardware connections.
  2. your serial port baud rate setting

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6

Hi Charles Chen,

Thanks for the details for the USB to TTL. However this version is different than your wiki page instructions, here: VisionFive2 | youyeetoo wiki .
At first I tried your pinout, even though your diagram only shows 5 pins instead of 6. Then I realized why my adapter arrived with a pin block on two of the 6 pins, which I removed, because it coflicted with what I saw in the wiki instructions.

Anyway, I now understand what’s going on, and why we’re using the GPIO pins for video output through MobaXterm. After searching online for VisionFive2 Linux images I discovered that Ubuntu still didn’t have a driver for the onboard VisonFive2 graphics: Install Ubuntu on the StarFive VisionFive 2 - Ubuntu Boards documentation.
After some more digging I finally found a newer Debian image that works only by settiing the dip swtich to DPIO position, and this StarFive Debian image boots from microSD wiith U-Boot and driver(s) for the onboard graphics! .Microsoft OneDrive , Even better, you’ll see at that repo on OneDrive that there are images also for NVMe and eMMC!

I simply wanted to verify that my two VisionFive2 boards work! As soon as I realized this I ordered one more black, fan-less metal case from your site today, for my other board! In truth, I will try to figure out the GPIO settings using an older Debian VisionFive2 image which didn’t work with the onboard graphics, because, in truth, I bought these boards only because I want to U-boot the Guix System raw/-barebones image: Download latest — GNU Guix .

Thanks again for the detail above illustrating what each pin does. I’ve got what I need now to continue :slight_smile: .