GPU-accelerated distro now running on Star64

[tantamount]

I've created a Frankenstein image for Star64 based on Fishwaldo's plasma 1.2 image and the root partition of StarFive's GPU-accelerated image, which was demo'd on Reddit by Slammernanners.

Some context:
On Reddit, Slammernanners showed off a Debian image with StarFive's closed-source drivers and an older Mesa, which only works on the VisionFive 2 board. That board uses the same SoC and GPU as the Star64.

See the video he uploaded here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RISCV/comments/...able_as_a/

I inquired about getting this Debian image and Slammernanners gave me this direct link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1...2KCQjJ8JI5

I took Fishwaldo's 1.2 plasma image and tried two experiments:

Experiment 1. Clear out his root partition and rsync over StarFive' files and boot it up: This failed. Systemd complained about some files.

Experiment 2. Use dd to copy over the StarFive' root partition verbatim, as it is location independent of course, overwriting Fishwaldo's. This worked. It booted up to the Gnome login screen of Debian and I logged in.

You can download my 4GB Frankenstein image here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u7qiCJv...sp=sharing

There's not a lot of free space in the root partition (#4), so on Linux you'll need to dd it to a larger microSD, and resize the partition and run resize2fs on it.
I'll upload a larger image in a few days with some updates etc.

The login in user/starfive. You can sudo to install packages.
Never do an apt update, as that'll destroy the GPU acceleration.

Watch the boot up of the image on Star64:
https://youtu.be/qzg7ZwHwU5k

[Fishwaldo]

Just a FYI, that’s not his image - that’s the Debian snapshot released by starfive.

Caveat - don’t run apt upgrade on that image. It will overwrite all the custom binaries for GPU acceleration. (It’s a snapshot release!)

[tantamount]

Just a FYI, that’s not his image - that’s the Debian snapshot released by starfive.

Caveat - don’t run apt upgrade on that image. It will overwrite all the custom binaries for GPU acceleration. (It’s a snapshot release!)

Interesting. When I asked him where to download it, he said on the StarFive site, but in the google section it was missing at that moment. He then provided me with a direct link. Maybe someone at StarFive shared it with him. I've updated the naming to reflect its origin.

That's correct, he's said a few times we can't apt update because that will replace Mesa with the newer, post-refactor version of Mesa which isn't compatible with the closed-source userland code. By the way what is the origin of the images that you provide (pinix)?

[Fishwaldo]

The starfive guys post a lot on their wiki. If you scroll down to the VF2 section you will see links to the Debian image on Google drive. -> https://rvspace.org/en/home

The Mesa and kernel patches come from Starfive. A lot of the app patches I’ve done myself (mainly KDE/plasma related as that’s easier (for my anyway) than GTK/gnome.

[revida]

Very impressive! You managed to successfully craft a customized image for Star64 by merging Fishwaldo's plasma 1.2 image with the root partition from StarFive GPU-accelerated image and Experiment 2, wherein dd was used to copy over this partition successfully, producing results which allowed Gnome login screen bootup of Debian image on Star64.

Your 4GB Frankenstein image, which can be downloaded via the provided link, comes with limited root partition space; therefore if using Linux you must dd the root partition onto a larger microSD and use resize2fs to extend its size.

Log in as "starfive," use sudo to install packages, but avoid doing an apt update as that may interfere with GPU acceleration.

Thanks for sharing your project and its video that showed off its boot up process on Star64; that was amazing to witness. Looking forward to any updates or larger files uploaded in future updates or uploads.

thanks and regards
revida marcos
https://www.multispanindia.com