===== What? =====
Looks like an affordable RISC-V board, got the 8GB RAM model. Shipped from Shenzen/China in 3 days to tokyo. Waiting for the power supply.

  * https://pine64.com/product/star64-model-a-8gb-single-board-computer/
  * Star64 model A SBC, featuring the StarFive JH-7110 SoC
  * quad-core SiFive U74 RISC-V 64bit CPU with an IM BXE-4-32-G52-2EE GPU
  * power connector: 
    * 12V 3A or above type M 5.5mm OD/2.1mm ID barrel type DC Jack Connector
    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_power_connector
    * This is the one I ordered: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/gp/product/B07XKRCPTN/
    * power consumption: I saw 4-8w consumed
  * [[https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/STAR64|Data sheets, bringup infos]]
  * [[https://blog.fluxcoil.net/posts/2023/05/star64-first-look/|My blog article]]
  * https://github.com/takayuki-nagata/u-boot/wiki

===== Distros =====
  * [[https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=18291|armbian]] ([[https://forum.armbian.com/topic/28912-star64-jh7110/|direct]]) - that looks most usable to me right now
  * [[https://wiki.debian.org/RISC-V|Debian]]
  * [[https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/RISC-V|Fedora]] - I got a report that Fedora userland + non-Fedora kernel can be used to book the Star64, haven't done that myself - haven't yet tried.
  * [[https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:RISC-V|SuSE]]

===== First boot =====
  * For first boot, I used the image from https://pine64.my-ho.st:8443/ . Now I use image Armbian_23.09_Star64_sid_current_6.1.31.img.xz from [[https://disk.yandex.ru/d/eEC4riP1jBWCeg/ArmbianTV/20231123-current|here]]
  * Write that to an sd-card
  * You can use a HDMI2usb converter to capture the output, and connect a usb-keyboard for input
  * or use serial connection:
    * provides more details/direct access than HDMI
    * Connect a usb/serial converter, connect the GND pin of the converter to for example pin6 of the star64, the adapters RX pin to the star64's pin8 (which is TX), and the adapters TX pin to the star64's pin10 (RX)
    * Execute "screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200,cs8"
    * [[https://files.pine64.org/doc/star64/Star64_Schematic_V1.0_20220721.pdf|pin schematics]]
  * later SSH login gets possible
  * login pine64/pine64, 'su -' / root-password is pine64

<code>
cat >>~/.profile<<EOT
# extend prompt to have temperature
export PS1='[\u@\h $(cut -b 1,2 /sys/devices/platform/soc/120e0000.tmon/hwmon/hwmon0/temp1_input)\xc2\xb0C \W]$ '
# colored iostat output
export S_COLORS=always
alias ll='ls -al'
# export LC_ALL=en_GB.UTF-8
export EDITOR=vi
EOT
</code>
  * I added audit=0 in /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf to disable audit.
===== Benchmarks =====
<code>
[root@star64 55°C ~]$ 7z b -mmt1

7-Zip (a) 16.02 : Copyright (c) 1999-2016 Igor Pavlov : 2016-05-21
p7zip Version 16.02 (locale=en_GB.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,64 bits,4 CPUs LE)

LE
CPU Freq: - - - - - - - - 2048000000

RAM size:    7921 MB,  # CPU hardware threads:   4
RAM usage:    435 MB,  # Benchmark threads:      1

                       Compressing  |                  Decompressing
Dict     Speed Usage    R/U Rating  |      Speed Usage    R/U Rating
         KiB/s     %   MIPS   MIPS  |      KiB/s     %   MIPS   MIPS

22:        817   100    795    795  |      15891   100   1357   1357
23:        791   100    807    807  |      15651   100   1355   1355
24:        766   100    825    824  |      15361   100   1349   1349
25:        742   100    848    847  |      15011   100   1336   1336
----------------------------------  | ------------------------------
Avr:             100    819    818  |              100   1349   1349
Tot:             100   1084   1084
[root@star64 57°C ~]$ 
</code>

  * This is very much in line with the results for the [[https://gihyo.jp/admin/serial/01/ubuntu-recipe/0752|RISC-V VisionFive 2 board]].
  * Running sbc-bench: apt install gcc netcat lsof lmsensors ffmpeg p7zip git sysstat libc6-dev binutils gcc-dev

===== Reported header via serial =====
<code>
U-Boot SPL 2021.10 (Jan 19 2023 - 04:09:41 +0800)
DDR version: dc2e84f0.
Trying to boot from SPI

OpenSBI v1.2
   ____                    _____ ____ _____
  / __ \                  / ____|  _ \_   _|
 | |  | |_ __   ___ _ __ | (___ | |_) || |
 | |  | | '_ \ / _ \ '_ \ \___ \|  _ < | |
 | |__| | |_) |  __/ | | |____) | |_) || |_
  \____/| .__/ \___|_| |_|_____/|____/_____|
        | |
        |_|

Platform Name             : StarFive VisionFive V2
Platform Features         : medeleg
Platform HART Count       : 5
Platform IPI Device       : aclint-mswi
Platform Timer Device     : aclint-mtimer @ 4000000Hz
Platform Console Device   : uart8250
Platform HSM Device       : jh7110-hsm
Platform PMU Device       : ---
Platform Reboot Device    : pm-reset
Platform Shutdown Device  : pm-reset
Firmware Base             : 0x40000000
Firmware Size             : 288 KB
Runtime SBI Version       : 1.0

Domain0 Name              : root
Domain0 Boot HART         : 1
Domain0 HARTs             : 0*,1*,2*,3*,4*
Domain0 Region00          : 0x0000000002000000-0x000000000200ffff (I)
Domain0 Region01          : 0x0000000040000000-0x000000004007ffff ()
Domain0 Region02          : 0x0000000000000000-0xffffffffffffffff (R,W,X)
Domain0 Next Address      : 0x0000000040200000
Domain0 Next Arg1         : 0x0000000042200000
Domain0 Next Mode         : S-mode
Domain0 SysReset          : yes

Boot HART ID              : 1
Boot HART Domain          : root
Boot HART Priv Version    : v1.11
Boot HART Base ISA        : rv64imafdcbx
Boot HART ISA Extensions  : none
Boot HART PMP Count       : 8
Boot HART PMP Granularity : 4096
Boot HART PMP Address Bits: 34
Boot HART MHPM Count      : 2
Boot HART MIDELEG         : 0x0000000000000222
Boot HART MEDELEG         : 0x000000000000b109


U-Boot 2021.10 (Jan 19 2023 - 04:09:41 +0800), Build: jenkins-github_visionfive2-6

CPU:   rv64imacu
Model: StarFive VisionFive V2
DRAM:  8 GiB
MMC:   sdio0@16010000: 0, sdio1@16020000: 1
Loading Environment from SPIFlash... SF: Detected gd25lq128 with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 4 KiB, total 16 MiB
</code>