I recently bought an Banana Pi BPI-F3. The BPI-F3 is a development board based on an SpacemiT K1 8-core RISC-V chip.

Here I will write up how I get it up and running. My plan is to build a custom Gentoo linux image for it - but that’s a long way to go. At first I will connect everything and use an existing image.

Requirements:

BPI-F3
12V Power Supply
USB to serial adapter (3.3V TTL)
USB-C to USB-A cable for connecting the BPI-F3 to the host

Contents:

1 - Serial console#

1.1 Connecting a USB to serial adapter#

Connect GND, RX and TX of the UART0 Debug connector to an USB serial adapter (3.3V TTL). Once connected a terminal can be used to connect with the following settings:

baud rate: 115200
data bits: 8
parity   : none
stop bits: 1

1.2 Output with empty eMMC and no SD card inserted#

In the default configuration the BPI-F3 tries to boot from SD card first and falls back to booting from eMMC. However, on a new BPI-F3 the eMMC doesn’t contain any data and therefore without an SD card the output looks as shown below:

␀sys: 0x0
try sd...
bm:3
ERROR:   CMD8
ERROR:   sd f! l:76
bm:0
ERROR:   emmc: invalid bootinfo magic code:0x0
ERROR:   invalid bootinfo image.
ERROR:   entering download mode.
ROM: usb download handler
usb2d_initialize : enter
Controller Run

So in the next step we need to prepare an SD card and/or write an image to the eMMC.

2 - Installing an image#

I initially planned to start with Bianbu Linux installed on an SD card, but for some reason this was not booting. The image was written correctly to the SD card and I could not figure out the problem yet. A Gentoo Linux image however booted scuccessfully after sorting out one old SD card which corrupted the image on my first attempt. I therefore went on and installed Bianbu linux on eMMC.

2.1 - Boot selection settings#

For booting from eMMC the DIP switches must be set correctly. In the factory default settings all 4 switches are set to off. Switch 1 and 2 are used for selecting the boot device and the factory default already selects eMMC as we want it.

Here some details about the DIP switch functions (see BPI-F3 schematic from the BananaPi Docs):

# BPI-F3 SW1 functions

-------------
|   off   on |
| 1 -o------ | - boot select 1 (QSPI_DATA0)
| 2 -o------ | - boot select 2 (QSPI_DATA1)
| 3 -o------ | - not connected
| 4 -o------ | - not connected
-------------
     ^---------- factory defaults (all 4 switches set to off)

Boot select:
     1  |  2  | function
    ====|=====|====================
    off | off | TF card -> eMMC (factory default)
    off | on  | TF card -> SPI NAND
    on  | off | TF card -> SPI NOR
    on  | on  | TF card only

2.2 - Enter download mode#

To enter download mode on the BPI-F3 hold down the FDL button and then reset the device. Under some circumstances the device also enters download mode automatically. This for example is the case on a failed boot attempt with an empty eMMC.

Once the device is in download mode it shows following messages on the serial debug console:

ROM: usb download handler
usb2d_initialize : enter
Controller Run

After connecting the PD12V USB port of the BPI-F3 to the host a fastboot devices command should show the device as shown below:

$ fastboot devices
dfu-device	 DFU download

Now we can continue to install the image with fastboot.

2.3 - Enter U-Boot fastboot mode#

At the current state we only have a simple download mode provided by the boot ROM running. Now we need to upload the FSBL (First Stage Boot Loader) which in case of the BPI-F3 is the U-Boot SPL stage (U-Boot Secondary Program Loader - second after the code from the boot ROM). After this we also can upload the main U-Boot binary (a.k.a. U-Boot proper) which then provides the fastboot mode we use for flashing the firmware.

The Boot Development Guide in the Bianbu Linux Docs describes this and provides additional information about the boot process of the SpacemiT K1.

For entering the U-Boot fastboot mode run the following commands:

fastboot stage factory/FSBL.bin
fastboot continue

# wait some time to ensure u-boot is ready
sleep 1

fastboot stage u-boot.itb
fastboot continue

The required files can be found in the zip files available for download on the SpacemiT server. Downloads ending in img.zip contain an image to be written onto an SD card. On the other hand downloads ending in only zip contain separate files we can use to upload the firmware via fastboot - that’s what we need.

-> Here the file for Bianbu Linux v2.0.4 (minimal variant for K1)

2.4 - Flash eMMC#

Once the transition to the U-Boot fastboot mode is performed we can create the required partitions and write the firmware to the eMMC. All required files are included in the zip file we already downloaded.

For creating the partitions and writing the firmware run following commands:

fastboot flash gpt partition_universal.json
fastboot flash bootinfo factory/bootinfo_emmc.bin
fastboot flash fsbl factory/FSBL.bin
fastboot flash env env.bin
fastboot flash opensbi fw_dynamic.itb
fastboot flash uboot u-boot.itb
fastboot flash bootfs bootfs.ext4
fastboot flash rootfs rootfs.ext4

Now a reset should result in the BPI-F3 booting up the installed Linux. The boot process can be watched on the serial debug console.

3 - What to do next?#

Play around with the device
Understand the boot process etc.
Investigate why the SD card images of Bianbu Linux did not boot
Custom builds of OpenSBI, U-Boot and Linux
and maybe more …

Getting started with the Banana Pi BPI-F3

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