Installing on Pioneer Box

Hardware Preparation

• Milk-V Pioneer v1.3 device or motherboard (with necessary peripherals) - 1 set

• m.2 NVMe solid-state drive - 1 unit

If it contains data, format it to clear the data (make sure to back up personal files)

If you have a PCIe adapter card, place it in the first PCIe slot of the device (recommended)

If no PCIe adapter card, use the onboard NVMe interface

• AMD R5 230 graphics card - 1 unit

Place it in the second PCIe slot of the device

• USB flash drive - 1 unit

Should be at least 16GiB

• microSD card - 1 unit

Should be at least 4GiB

• Monitor (the display interface should match the graphics card)

• USB keyboard and mouse - 1 set

• Equipment/components required for serial operation (optional)

• RJ45 network cable - at least 1, and router/switch for wired network connection

It is recommended to use the device's onboard RJ45 network port rather than the manufacturer's provided PCIe network card.

The device does not come with a WiFi network card and does not support WiFi or Bluetooth connectivity. Please prepare the corresponding equipment if needed.

Types of Images

ISO

ISO images support booting via UEFI, corresponding to the UEFI version firmware described below.

Download the ISO file (e.g., openEuler-24.03-LTS-riscv64-dvd.iso) from the official download page and burn it to a USB flash drive.

• It is recommended to use the Balena Etcher software for graphical burning [download from https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/releases/latest]. The burning process is not detailed here.
• In a command-line environment, you can also use the dd method to burn the image. Refer to the following command:

~$ sudo dd if=openEuler-24.03-LTS-riscv64-dvd.iso of=/dev/sda bs=512K iflag=fullblock oflag=direct conv=fsync status=progress

Image

Image images support booting via Legacy, corresponding to the non-UEFI version firmware described below.

Download the Zip archive containing the image (e.g., openEuler-24.03-LTS-riscv64-sg2042.img.zip) from the official download page and burn it directly to an SDCARD or solid-state drive.

Device Firmware

Since the device's factory firmware currently does not support UEFI, users of the ISO version need to manually replace the firmware with the UEFI version based on EDK2.

Download the device firmware archive sg2042_firmware_uefi.zip from the official download page under the Embedded category, extract it, and burn the img file to an SDCARD.

~$ sudo dd if=firmware_single_sg2042-master.img of=/dev/sda bs=512K iflag=fullblock oflag=direct conv=fsync status=progress
261619712 bytes (262 MB, 250 MiB) copied, 20 s, 13.1 MB/s
268435456 bytes (268 MB, 256 MiB) copied, 20.561 s, 13.1 MB/s

512+0 records in
512+0 records out
268435456 bytes (268 MB, 256 MiB) copied, 20.5611 s, 13.1 MB/s

Due to the older firmware version shipped with the device, Image users who want to use a newer version of the firmware can update to the non-UEFI version of the firmware.

Download the device firmware package sg2042_firmware_uboot.zip from the embedded category on the download page, and follow the same procedure as the UEFI firmware to extract and flash the img file to the SDCARD.

After burning, insert the SDCARD into the device's card slot.

Pre-Startup Checks

For ISO version users:

• Ensure the microSD card with the UEFI firmware is inserted into the device's card slot.

  The current UEFI firmware cannot manually adjust or specify the boot order, please understand.

• If using the factory-provided solid-state drive, or if another bootable RISC-V operating system exists on the drive, remove the solid-state drive for formatting or replace it with another empty solid-state drive to avoid interference with the boot order.

For Image version users:

• If using the factory-provided solid-state drive, or if another bootable RISC-V operating system exists on the drive, remove the solid-state drive for formatting or replace it with another empty solid-state drive to avoid interference with the boot order.

Notes for Use

For ISO version users:

• Due to the limitations of the current version of the UEFI firmware, the Grub2 boot menu may take a long time (~15s) to load and respond slowly if the graphics card is inserted into the PCIe slot during startup.

For Image version users:

• Due to the limitations of the current factory firmware, the RISC-V serial output is incomplete during device startup, and the serial output will be closed before the operating system is fully loaded. The graphics card needs to be inserted into the PCIe slot and connected to a monitor to observe the complete startup process.