sven-ola

Schematics-wise no - at leasts I don't see a diff in the RV2_SCH.pdf. Electrical-wise probably - other traces, so maybe more or less crosstalk, better or worse gnd and such. From a software perspective: this is PCIE-B and C (while A is unused).
That PCIe active state power management seems to be a source of endless pleasure, maybe the NVME vendors all have digested the wrong specs or so. Anyhow: if it works now, it's fine probably.

Success: tested RV2 with GPU on Armbian-noble-nightly. It's a bit hacky but should work. I created a mirror of the relevant packages from Spacmit/Bianbu. Only packages with source, specific to k1x / video / gpu plus chromium. Mirror project is here, in case you want to mirror yourself or miss a package: https://codeberg.org/sven-ola/spacemit-mirror
 
After getting up Armbian-noble-xfce4-nightly on your Spacemit/K1 board (that includes Ky X1)
Add mirror repo to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sven-ola.sources (Note: this is experimental) Types: deb deb-src URIs: https://privat-in.de/armbian Suites: noble Components: main Signed-By: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/sven-ola.gpg  
Get my repo key with  wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/sven-ola.gpg https://privat-in.de/armbian/key.gpg Give the mirror some weight, add an /etc/apt/preferences.d/sven-ola file Package: * Pin: release o=Sven-Ola Pin-Priority: 1000  
Install GPU support  apt-get update apt-get install img-gpu-powervr apt-get dist-upgrade Note: this will downgrade mesa-25.x to mesa-24.x from Bianbu/Spacemit
Install a Wayland-enabled GUI (tested: gnome) apt-get install gnome-core systemctl disable lightdm If asked, select gdm from gnome instead of lightdm from xfce4.
After rebooting, click on your user, then stop and select Gnome with the lower right gearwheel icon.
I also installed glmark2-es2-wayland to check if that runs. It shows 417@800x600 which is faster than software mesa... 

Success: tested RV2 with GPU on Armbian-noble-nightly. It's a bit hacky but should work. I created a mirror of the relevant packages from Spacmit/Bianbu. Only packages with source, specific to k1x / video / gpu plus chromium. Mirror project is here, in case you want to mirror yourself or miss a package: https://codeberg.org/sven-ola/spacemit-mirror
 
After getting up Armbian-noble-xfce4-nightly on your Spacemit/K1 board (that includes Ky X1)
Add mirror repo to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sven-ola.sources (Note: this is experimental) Types: deb deb-src URIs: https://privat-in.de/armbian Suites: noble Components: main Signed-By: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/sven-ola.gpg  
Get my repo key with  wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/sven-ola.gpg https://privat-in.de/armbian/key.gpg Give the mirror some weight, add an /etc/apt/preferences.d/sven-ola file Package: * Pin: release o=Sven-Ola Pin-Priority: 1000  
Install GPU support  apt-get update apt-get install img-gpu-powervr apt-get dist-upgrade Note: this will downgrade mesa-25.x to mesa-24.x from Bianbu/Spacemit
Install a Wayland-enabled GUI (tested: gnome) apt-get install gnome-core systemctl disable lightdm If asked, select gdm from gnome instead of lightdm from xfce4.
After rebooting, click on your user, then stop and select Gnome with the lower right gearwheel icon.
I also installed glmark2-es2-wayland to check if that runs. It shows 417@800x600 which is faster than software mesa... 

Success: tested RV2 with GPU on Armbian-noble-nightly. It's a bit hacky but should work. I created a mirror of the relevant packages from Spacmit/Bianbu. Only packages with source, specific to k1x / video / gpu plus chromium. Mirror project is here, in case you want to mirror yourself or miss a package: https://codeberg.org/sven-ola/spacemit-mirror
 
After getting up Armbian-noble-xfce4-nightly on your Spacemit/K1 board (that includes Ky X1)
Add mirror repo to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sven-ola.sources (Note: this is experimental) Types: deb deb-src URIs: https://privat-in.de/armbian Suites: noble Components: main Signed-By: /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/sven-ola.gpg  
Get my repo key with  wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/sven-ola.gpg https://privat-in.de/armbian/key.gpg Give the mirror some weight, add an /etc/apt/preferences.d/sven-ola file Package: * Pin: release o=Sven-Ola Pin-Priority: 1000  
Install GPU support  apt-get update apt-get install img-gpu-powervr apt-get dist-upgrade Note: this will downgrade mesa-25.x to mesa-24.x from Bianbu/Spacemit
Install a Wayland-enabled GUI (tested: gnome) apt-get install gnome-core systemctl disable lightdm If asked, select gdm from gnome instead of lightdm from xfce4.
After rebooting, click on your user, then stop and select Gnome with the lower right gearwheel icon.
I also installed glmark2-es2-wayland to check if that runs. It shows 417@800x600 which is faster than software mesa... 

@c0rnelius: Thanks for the info, I'll fiddle with the GPU in the meantime. 
 
@Cristian Apas: that hack above is necessary if you use the Xunlong Ubuntu userspace. They have replaced every hint on the OEM, which includes the GPU driver name. Hack not necessary if we simply use the Spacemit Bianbu Ubuntu userspace.
 
I hacked an image together with this (see my site https://privat-in.de goto Downloads). It has a glmark2 score of 424 (not very fast). This is not for everybody. I compiled a standard OrangepiRv2 Armbian image with a legacy kernel and put in a Bianbu 3.01 minimal userspace as root. Details from my notes:
# Image creation starts with Armbian-Orangepirv2_trixie_legacy_6.6.99_minimal.img Root from https://archive.spacemit.com/image/k1/version/bianbu/v3.0.1/ -> minimal.img -- Default LANG=zh_CN.UTF-8, change: dpkg-reconfigure locales -> en_US.UTF-8 Copy from Armbian: /etc/netplan/10-dhcp-all-interfaces.yaml, /etc/fstab, /boot/*, /lib/modules/*, /etc/modprobe.d/orangepirv2.conf /etc/modules-load.d/orangepirv2.conf Purge spacemit-flash-dtbs (and thereby remove linux-image-6.6.63*) Uploaded this image to https://privat-in.de/ (Downloads)  
First steps after flashing
UART login as root / bianbu
apt-get install parted
parted /dev/mmcblk0 (or /dev/nvme0n1): resizepart 1 100%
resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p1 (or /dev/nvme0n1p1)
apt-get install gnome-core glmark2-es2-wayland
adduser a-new-user
adduser a-new-user sudo
Reboot and login
Click on Terminal, run glmark2-es2-wayland
 
Notes: other Spacemit K1 boards can run Bianbu without any changes, this is exclusively for OpiRV2. Expect oopses at every corner...
 
You can install cinnamon-core and use that. Make sure to run cinnamon under gdm3 b/c starting via lightdm does not work well (e.g. menu open freezes). Also, KDE plasma only with screen artifacts and xfce4-wayland simply exits immediately. No other wayland DE tested...

@sven-ola https://lore.kernel.org/spacemit/20260310161853.3900605-1-gaohan@iscas.ac.cn/T/#t
 
Sometime soon-ish I'll be doing another PR with early SD card and CPU freq scaling support. The above link should at least get you boot from eMMC or NVMe.
 

Looks like the same adjustment that was made for EDGE needs to be done so for CURRENT.

Auto generated images:
 
https://dl.armbian.com/nightly/orangepirv2/Forky_current_minimal
https://dl.armbian.com/nightly/orangepirv2/Noble_current_xfce
 

Good news: this is merged in Armbian main now, many thanks to  @c0rnelius and @Igor for reviewing this. So no more need to grab my fork, just clone Armbian/build:main. I was able to build and quick-test orangepirv2/edge-kernel and this looks fine including Wifi. 
 
There are of course unsolved quirks currently. With edge-kernel, Wayland does not work, we need to use Xorg. And with the current bcmdhd Wifi driver, AP mode is not possible. This is caused by outdated file in armbian-firmware for bcmdhd and may be the same on OrangePi5. There is a mechanism to load a different fw_bcm43456c5_ag.bin (the one downloadable from github/xunlong seems to work).
 
LG // Sven-Ola 

Good news: this is merged in Armbian main now, many thanks to  @c0rnelius and @Igor for reviewing this. So no more need to grab my fork, just clone Armbian/build:main. I was able to build and quick-test orangepirv2/edge-kernel and this looks fine including Wifi. 
 
There are of course unsolved quirks currently. With edge-kernel, Wayland does not work, we need to use Xorg. And with the current bcmdhd Wifi driver, AP mode is not possible. This is caused by outdated file in armbian-firmware for bcmdhd and may be the same on OrangePi5. There is a mechanism to load a different fw_bcm43456c5_ag.bin (the one downloadable from github/xunlong seems to work).
 
LG // Sven-Ola 

@brunorro What a read! That's cool stuff - hopefully those guys'n'gals visit the next station on their journey soon: from TH1520, via JH7110, then (hopefully) X1. At least that mailbox communication sounds similar with the SpacemiT SoC: power management via extra rCPU is also a thing here. Thank you for the link // Sven-Ola

The second time I built it, the image deb worked and the bcmdhd dkms loaded.
 
> dkms status
bcmdhd-spacemit-sdio/101.10.591.84.37-4, 6.18.9-edge-spacemit, riscv64: installed
 

Two addons: I compiled on another notebook and stumbled over a RAM error message from Armbian compile.sh. Notebook has 8GB, so I added the recommended KERNEL_BTF=no to the ./compile.sh args. A dkms status says, the bcmdhd is built and active.

Hello @Malay. Never mind - I' am not a native English speaker too. I have not tested the GUI intensively because my Goal is using this little board as a mini-server. Also, I think it's best getting the basics up before turning to the high-level GUI and media stuff.
 
The "current" 6.6.99 kernel seems not to work with Wayland. You can switch to X11, change /etc/gdm3/custom.conf. The "edge" 6.18.7 is works with Wayland. Integrating GPU support is out of my focus currently, I am even unsure if this applies for Orange Pi RV2: https://sdk.spacemit.com/en/graphics/graphics_driver_framework/ ?
 
HW Video decoding is another rabbit hole. The documentation is Chinese at best 🤪
 
LG + HTH // Sven-Ola

Hello @Malay, et.al, after submitting my PullRQ to the Armbian repo, I think it's best to cope first with the annotations I received from that. It complains about missing board photos, and some LLM generated blurb partly valid suggestions, partly not.
 
The current status of Armbian's Spacemit support does not make the RV2 board a good video player: GPU support is missing and I'm pretty unsure if it's possible to include the HW video encoding / decoding feature that is in the chip. Which is 4k@30 with diverse codecs according to the chip description PDF. I am glad, that X11 framebuffer video runs and I am unsure if I can proceed here b/c I am not a video / GPU / EGL / vulkan specialist.
 
Anyhow, thank you for the pointer to the Spacemit FAQ I did not recognize until now. While the PowerVR page from mesa3d states: "no IMG BXE-2-32" (https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/powervr.html), the respective Gitee repo contains closed-source BSD licensed Risc64 compiled shard objects (*.so), probably similar to the Nvida binary user space closed drivers that does the GPU support for the big videos cards. This may be worth a look, but as I wrote above, prio task is to bring the support into the Armbian tree.
 
Best // Sven-Ola

🦀 Rust PiCalculator on Orange Pi RV2 (riscv64, Armbian Trixie)
Compiled and ran a high-precision Pi calculator in Rust on my Orange Pi RV2 (K1X, 8-core @ 1.6 GHz) running Armbian-unofficial Trixie riscv64. The goal: test rustc performance and validate big-integer workloads on RISC-V.
✅ Environment
OS: Armbian-unofficial 26.02.0-trunk (Debian Trixie)
Kernel: Linux 6.18.5-edge-spacemit
Rust: rustc 1.85.0, cargo 1.85.0 (built from source)
Display: EZCAP28X @ 1920×1080
Memory: 3.7 GiB RAM, 1.3 GiB used
Disk: ext4, 28.96 GiB total
GPU: Mesa llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.7)
🧮 Project: PiCalculator
Rust implementation using rug (GMP-backed) to compute 1000 digits of π:
rust
use rug::{float::Constant, Float}; fn main() { let digits: usize = 1000; let bits: u32 = ((digits as f64) * 3.321928).ceil() as u32 + 10; let pi = Float::with_val(bits, Constant::Pi); let s = pi.to_string_radix(10, Some(digits)); println!("{s}"); }
🧩 Build Notes
Needed libgmp-dev and m4 to compile rug cleanly.
cargo build --release succeeded without patching.
Output verified against known π digits.
⚖️ Performance Comparison
Board CPU Time (ms) Real Time (ms) Pi 400 Faster (1.8 GHz, fewer cores) Lower latency RV2 (K1X) Slower per-core, but stable Good throughput
Despite having 8 cores, the RV2’s in-order K1X is slower than the Pi 400’s Cortex-A72 for single-threaded math. Still, the build was smooth and the output correct — a great stress test for rustc on riscv64.
 

I operate an Odroid HC4, that has 4 x A55@1.8 and the board discussed here has 8  x X60@1.?. A fast sysbench says: single thread on OpiRv2 is slower (792 vs 1034) , multithreaded is faster (6342 vs 4151). Compiling a current kernel on RV2 needs 3 hours, nothing one would do do regularly. If you really need speed buy a Radxa Rock 5 (see platinum support devices on this site).
 
Edit1: NPU -> Opi Wiki, USB and SPI yes, for MIPI DSI/CSI you need to test yourself.
Edit2: Just remembered that I have a H618 (Opiz3). Single=708, Multi=2828 with the same Trixie sysbench. 
 
HTH + LG // Sven-Ola

Hello @brunorro. That "current.txt" from above: the UART output shows you are booting an older KY-Uboot from NOR flash. Probably SD card not fully inserted.  "edge.txt" shows a correct SD card boot sequence.
 
Best // Sven-Ola

In the meantime I fiddled with HW crypto and PCIe sleep states. While the former is working on edge and current, the latter may be an individual error with my Samsung PM9b1 128Gb NVME SSD not working in the upper 2230 M.2 on edge.
 
While the current 6.6 kernel does not use ASPM eventually, the edge 6.18 kernel has it and it leads to read errors. Adding pcie_aspm=off to /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf::append helped, but I think adding a "No ASPM" to pci-quirks for this device is a better solution b/c the PCIe wifi is working (has L1 and L0s sleep).
 
So if you like then test your NVME SSDs with the edge kernel. I'am especially interested in NVMEs reporting Capabilities L1 PM Substates with lspci -v
 
LG // Sven-Ola

Hello @brunorro. Yes, sometimes people are hacking badly. I have it working again after restarting with Armbian/Spacemit: u-boot starts, onboard BT and Wifi works, SD card is again reading with 80mb/s, transfer u-boot and SBI to MTD via armbian-install works (MTD boot is required for starting from SSD), both M.2 slots can boot from NVME. 
 
Sadly, the Broadcom SDIO wifi driver is a smoking mess. This driver needs heavy porting so its not available with linux-6.18 / edge currently.  Are you willing to test anyhow? I can provide a 6.6.99 Trixie image for download if you ACK. There are always things that I may have overlooked such as USB, HDMI. All those little things I have not tested, I' on UART currently.
 
LG // Sven-Ola

PCIe MSI is not working. At least with an Intel iwlwifi M.2 card. For that reason, I investigated the differences between the Xunlong KY tree and the Armbian Spacemit Tree. B/c loading the "official" 552kb esos.elf seems to work (even if the Ky version is only 104kb) on the OrangePi RV2, I started to backport Xunlong changes to Armbian/Spacemit family.
 
Newer kernel, but no luck with that MSI. There should be a DMA-transfer-complete interrupt at the end of the firmware upload. Card is working in my PC. MSI is working on OpiRV2 with NVME. Current status: board runs with spacemit-family kernel, but some minor Does-Not-Work yet: LED, onboard Wifi+BT and I need to check that special RTL eth...
 
LG // Sven-Ola
 
Edit: Pic it or it didn't happen. RV2 underside with WIfi card.

Hey! Got it up and running - I have an Armbian SD card image based on the source trees found on https://github.com/orangepi-xunlong. Since I am a newbie to Armbian, please accept my apologies for beginner errors. Here's what I currently got on my UART:
 
root@orangepirv2:~# uname -a Linux orangepirv2 6.6.63-current-ky #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Mar 18 02:29:27 UTC 2025 riscv64 GNU/Linux root@orangepirv2:~# cat /etc/os-release PRETTY_NAME="Armbian-unofficial 26.02.0-trunk trixie" NAME="Debian GNU/Linux" VERSION_ID="13" VERSION="13 (trixie)" VERSION_CODENAME=trixie DEBIAN_VERSION_FULL=13.2 ID=debian HOME_URL="https://www.armbian.com/" SUPPORT_URL="https://forum.armbian.com" BUG_REPORT_URL="https://www.armbian.com/bugs" ARMBIAN_PRETTY_NAME="Armbian-unofficial 26.02.0-trunk trixie"  
This is not ready for prime time now. Needs a bit cleanup b/c I pulled in binaries and private project stuff not meant for armbian-build. Currently resides in this fork https://github.com/sven-ola/armbian-build/tree/orangepi-rv2. If you want to give it a try: it's compile.sh opirv2 after checkout. I've also managed to boot from the top 2230 M.2 SSD but this is also handmade (I'm pretty sure there is a script in here that copies the SD card boot blobs to SPI flash, will try before doing the MR).
 
Best // Sven-Ola