Colin Gordon<p>Okay, short instructions on booting <a href="https://discuss.systems/tags/FreeBSD" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FreeBSD</span></a> on a <a href="https://discuss.systems/tags/VisionFive2" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>VisionFive2</span></a> <a href="https://discuss.systems/tags/riscv" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>riscv</span></a> board, maybe I'll put these somewhere more stable later:</p><p>- Grab a copy of <a href="https://github.com/robn/freebsd-vf2" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">github.com/robn/freebsd-vf2</span><span class="invisible"></span></a><br>- edit mkvf2img.sh to mention an actually-existing snapshot; I used alpha 2<br>- optionally, edit it use grab a newer dtb for the board. 2.5.0 probably still works, but I took a gamble on 3.1.5 and it worked for me.<br>- run mkvf2img.sh on a FreeBSD system. If you know how to replace those uses of mdconfig and mkimg (which appear FreeBSD-specific) you could probably get it to run elsewhere, but I don't know how<br>- burn vf2.img to an sd card<br>- set your board to boot from flash/SPI. On my board (v1.3B) there's already a working u-boot installation there; on earlier boards it's possible you'll have to follow StarFive's directions to flash u-boot if you haven't already (not sure, I only have a recent 1.3B). This is the main thing missing from the instructions in that repo (I'll make a PR at some point), was which u-boot was in use (common instructions work with images that stick a copy of u-boot on the sd card)<br>- Now follow the instructions from the readme, using a USB TTL cable, *except* change the first command to ```fatload mmc 1:1 0x48000000 dtb/starfive/starfive_visionfive2.dtb``` (there was a PR that changed where the DTB went). All later commands work as advertised.<br> + (they're not kidding about loading of root.img.uzip taking a while)</p><p>Useful tips:<br>- Along the way you'll see *a lot* of one particular error message. Clearly something isn't quite right, but don't panic if you see the one error a few hundred times<br>- If you get dumped at a ```dd>``` prompt you probably mistyped something at the OK prompt (or accidentally hit enter, in which case it tries to boot without a root filesystem)</p>