How do I become the VisionFive2 maintainer?

[IngwiePhoenix]

Hello there!

 

Over the past month and more I have been making many experiments - and right now, I am waiting for a finished product; a Docker container with musl-libc and gcc to serve as a "clean slate build environment". Initially, I had intended for this to be the environment for Alpine Linux - because I want the `alpine:3.19` container so half my software, including k3s, stops complaining xD - but figured, I made all those configs and have gathered all of this experience AND have a board right here - which is where I am putting my container together, too. Yep, those four cores are working overtime, since a month straight, between dozen revisions and rebuilds.

 

I still have to finalize my U-Boot and OpenSBI config; but this is what my kernel has right now:

```

# cat /boot/config-6.6.0-g076ede06c00a | grep -E "JH7110|JH7100|SIFIVE|STARFIVE|VISIONFIVE"
# CONFIG_SOC_SIFIVE is not set
CONFIG_ARCH_STARFIVE=y
CONFIG_SOC_STARFIVE=y
CONFIG_ERRATA_SIFIVE=y
CONFIG_ERRATA_SIFIVE_CIP_453=y
CONFIG_ERRATA_SIFIVE_CIP_1200=y
CONFIG_PCIE_STARFIVE_HOST=y
CONFIG_DWMAC_STARFIVE=y
CONFIG_SERIAL_SIFIVE=y
CONFIG_SERIAL_SIFIVE_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_HW_RANDOM_JH7110=y
CONFIG_SPI_SIFIVE=m
CONFIG_PINCTRL_STARFIVE_JH7100=y
CONFIG_PINCTRL_STARFIVE_JH7110=y
CONFIG_PINCTRL_STARFIVE_JH7110_SYS=y
CONFIG_PINCTRL_STARFIVE_JH7110_AON=y
# CONFIG_GPIO_SIFIVE is not set
CONFIG_STARFIVE_WATCHDOG=y
CONFIG_DRM_VERISILICON_STARFIVE_HDMI=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_STARFIVE=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_JH7110_PWMDAC=y
CONFIG_SND_SOC_JH7110_TDM=y
CONFIG_USB_CDNS3_STARFIVE=y
CONFIG_MMC_DW_STARFIVE=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_STARFIVE_CAMSS=y
CONFIG_CLK_STARFIVE_JH71X0=y
CONFIG_CLK_STARFIVE_JH7100=y
CONFIG_CLK_STARFIVE_JH7100_AUDIO=y
CONFIG_CLK_STARFIVE_JH7110_PLL=y
CONFIG_CLK_STARFIVE_JH7110_SYS=y
CONFIG_CLK_STARFIVE_JH7110_AON=y
CONFIG_CLK_STARFIVE_JH7110_STG=y
CONFIG_CLK_STARFIVE_JH7110_ISP=y
CONFIG_CLK_STARFIVE_JH7110_VOUT=y
CONFIG_STARFIVE_JH7110_TIMER=y
CONFIG_SIFIVE_CCACHE=y
# CONFIG_PWM_SIFIVE is not set
CONFIG_SIFIVE_PLIC=y
CONFIG_RESET_STARFIVE_JH71X0=y
# CONFIG_RESET_STARFIVE_JH7100 is not set
CONFIG_RESET_STARFIVE_JH7110=y
CONFIG_PHY_STARFIVE_JH7110_DPHY_RX=y
CONFIG_PHY_STARFIVE_JH7110_PCIE=y
CONFIG_PHY_STARFIVE_JH7110_USB=y
CONFIG_CRYPTO_DEV_JH7110=y

```

 

And those are required. There is a porting page about the currently outstanding patches that have yet to be accepted into mainline, so I am just effectively living on this: https://github.com/starfive-tech/linux/tree/JH7110_VisionFive2_upstream (note the branch). This is Linux 6.6.0. I am also working on merging Imaginary's GPU drivers - currently based on 6.6.0-rc1 - into this tree, but Github won't let me post it... Oh well; the merge is just four files.

 

Aside from that, there are also repos for MESA and the linux-firmware; constituting two packages specific to this board - or rather, this GPU. I wish they had made the driver itself a DKIM one... would've been more portable, I suppose.

 

Anyway; with all of this said, I have a few questions:

 

1. Where does one apply for maintainership? The VF2 currently has none.

2. How, in the automated build process (`compile.sh` in the `armbian/build` repo), do I specify config snippets for this specific soc/board for kernel, u-boot and openspi?

3. Anything else I need?

 

Kind regards,

Ingwie

[SteeMan]

I'd recommend starting by submitting PRs for the board.  Build up some knowledge and experience with Armbian development and processes.  Then when you feel comfortable with the requirements expected of a maintainer, make that final commitment (https://docs.armbian.com/Board_Maintainers_Procedures_and_Guidelines/)

[Celona]

IngwiePhoenix, you are welcome!

[IngwiePhoenix]

Apologies for the late reply; tapped the solution button whilst on the train ^^ 

 

I will sit down and work this out; currently working on somehow getting the merged kernel posted to Github. Both of them - ImaginaryGPU and StarFive - have "stopped" as they await merges, which ought to take a while.

In fact, the kernel setup is what "worries" me most. The rest? Probably easy-peasy.  

Anyways, thanks for the pointers - time to get to work!