[continued from previous message] 
  
 
Hello again,
I'll explain below, but TLDR is 
 between the accessibility requirements and the weird nature of the hardware, 
 this is, in no uncertain terms, not 
 the laptop for you. I would highly recommend waiting, at least until the 
 rest 
 of the K1 SOC is fully upstreamed; the wiki page for this I will link again 
 here: https 
 //github.com/spacemit-com/linux/ 
 wiki

Firstly, you ***cannot*** use a custom kernel for this 
 device, 
 at time of writing. The hardware developer has a custom kernel that you 
 *must* 
 use for this device, v6.6. While there is work in progress, a newer kernel 
 that is not 
 distributed by the hardware developer will not work. 

Next, let's 
 talk u-boot vs UEFI. U-boot requires a lot more than UEFI, as has been 
 mentioned previously. However, there is a lot more information hidden in 
 that 
 statement than you might 
 think. For example, you can't just move the dtb file to the right 
 location. The "dtb" extension stands for DeviceTree Binary, and is 
 directly tied to the kernel version being run. Simply moving the binary into 
 the right location will cause 
 a version mis-match and cause the hardware to not boot properly. Also, with 
 the version of U-boot the DC ROMA II uses, the entire boot stack is stored 
 on 
 the storage medium (be it SD card or NVMe). This is opposed to UEFI, where 
 you 
 just have flash on 
 the motherboard that is smart enough to reach out to the storage to find 
 your 
 bootloader to get the process started. If you look in the installer ISO for 
 Debian, in /boot/dtbs I believe, it lists all the compatible chips, and 
 SpacemiT is not in there. 
 Until it is, the Debian ISO will not work, and given the pace of the 
 SpacemiT 
 crew, I'd hesitantly say expect that to be added in Forky.

To 
 reiterate, simply using Debian Trixie on this device at this point in time 
 *will*. *not*. *work*. The 
 standard Debian kernel does not support the hardware yet, and the SpacemiT 
 kernel you will likely have to rebuild from scratch to get the modules you 
 need for accessibility purposes running, which in my experience is *very* 
 hit 
 or miss getting it to boot 
 afterwards. 

I own this laptop, and as a person who is lucky enough 
 to 
 not need any accessibility settings, it is frankly a nightmare to use in 
 it's current state. Simply running system updates is not an option, and 
 I've had to completely 
 reinstall the operating system on mine several times because I forgot. 
 I've tried off-and-on since I bought it at least a year ago, and 
 it's 
 currently gathering dust next to my other K1/M1 system while I wait for the 
 upstreaming effort to finish. 
 Even after the CPU gets upstreamed, owners of this laptop will probably need 
 to use DeepComputing's custom ISO while Imagination Technologies (the 
 GPU 
 vendor) gets their act together and finally merges their changes to mesa 
 into 
 upstream. 

I 
 would highly recommend reading through the issues in the DC ROMA II Github 
 page (see here: https://github.com/DC-DeepComputing/D 
 -ROMA_Gen2_LAPTOP_K1_RV-L2A ), just to get a 
 sense for the state of the device as a whole. It's clunky, it's not 
 ready, and it's largely been forgotten by DeepComputing as far as I can 
 tell while they figure out their Framework Mainboard endeavour. The JH7110 
 SOC 
 is kinda the only good 
 RISC-V chip to recommend right now for anything outside the absolute most 
 niche cases, because it's been almost entirely upstreamed, and therefore 
 is supported by the Debian installer natively. RISC-V is a really cool 
 technology, and I love it a lot, 
 but the hardware ecosystem right now is about the same as the Raspberry Pi 2 
 was when it came out, and I mean that both from a software support 
 standpoint 
 and from a hardware performance perspective.

To be perfectly frank, 
 if 
 I could talk to my 
 past self, I would say to not buy this laptop and save myself the migraines. 
 In a few years, it will be better, but the hardware barely runs on the 
 hardware manufacturer blessed distro images. The fact that anyone tried to 
 cram this chip in a laptop is a 
 testament to the arrogance of man, because a laptop appeals to normal 
 people, 
 and this laptop is at best a marketing stunt to drum up good PR for RISC-V 
 on 
 the whole.


On Thu, 11 Sept 2025 at 18:01, Kirk Reiser <kirk@reisers.ca> wrote:
 
 /div>
Hello folks: Thank you for the responses.
 
 
 
 The laptop did infact come with ubuntu-24.04 installed, except it was
 
 a greatly reduced package, they say because it wasn't expected that 
 a
 
 lot of people would login. It was kind of bogus in my mind.
 
 
 
 I upgraded the OS to their most recent version of 24.04.3 except it
 
 craps out when trying to upgrade to their idea of the latest kernel
 
 6.14.0. The distro as shipped has kernel 6.6.36 except with many
 
 kernel modules missing. The upgrade of the kernel dies while trying to
 
 copy the dtb files from a nonexistant spacemit directory in /boot. I
 
 have tried many things to attempt to spoof the new kernel from copying
 
 over the installed dtbs to a new 6.14.0 directory with no joy.
 
 
 
 Oh, and yes, it is using u-boot.
 
 
 
 Unfortunately Some of the kernel modules which are missing are the
 
 speakup modules which I must have to provide speech in text console
 
 mode. That has also made it much more difficult because it means I
 
 have to have a sighted person here to help me install/break/reinstall
 
 various packages.
 
 
 
 Upon examining the two debian images I tried to boot I realized that
 
 the netinst is grub based so wouldn't boot. The dvd however does
 
 appear to be u-boot based so I am still at a loss for the reason it
 
 won't boot.
 
 
 
 I don't really understand the booting mechanism of u-boot, even 
 after
 
 reading what I've been able to find.
 
 
 
 Anyway, the spacemit is an 8-core SOC called K1X I believe. The
 
 processor is a M1-8571. Here is the cpu line from dmesg on the system:
 
 
 
 spacemit-socinfo soc:socinfo@0: Spacemit: CPU[M1-8571] REV[C] DRO[127] 
 Detected
 
 
 
 So thank you and if you have any other recommendations I would
 
 appreciate them.
 
 
 
 €€ €€Kirk
 
 
 
 
 
 On Thu, 11 Sep 2025, Greg Sterling wrote:
 
 
 
 > Hello!
 
 >
 
 > My boss thought I might be able to get you contact with the devboards 
 community for help.€€ If you€€€re interested, you might be able to get some 
 help by sending an email to devboard- 
 community@riscv.org.€€ There are a lot of helpful people out there who 
 may 
 have experienced similar problems and may be able to offer some help or 
 suggestions.
 
 >
 
 > Thanks and have a great day!
 
 >
 
 > Greg Sterling (RISC-V International)
 
 > Phone: +1 603 321 7320
 
 > E-mail: gre 
 @riscv.org
 
 >
 
  
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