[Letux-kernel] Successfully booting LetuxOS on Star64 (RISCV) board

[H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Hi Paul,

> Am 07.02.2026 um 19:37 schrieb H. Nikolaus Schaller <hns at goldelico.com>:
> 
> 
> 
>> Am 07.02.2026 um 19:25 schrieb Paul Boddie <paul at boddie.org.uk>:
>> 
>> On Saturday, 7 February 2026 16:41:23 CET H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote:
>>> Well, here is the first issue while running apt-get upgrade...
>>> 
>>> Never seen such on other processors.
>> 
>> [...]
>> 
>>> [  929.737878] [<ffffffff80b35e64>] __memset+0x60/0xfe
>>> [  929.737884] [<ffffffff802bba74>] folio_zero_new_buffers+0x70/0xae
>>> [  929.737891] [<ffffffff802bbb32>] block_write_end+0x80/0x8c
>>> [  929.737897] [<ffffffff8032f136>] ext4_da_do_write_end.isra.0+0x32/0x248
>>> [  929.737906] [<ffffffff8032f3a4>] ext4_da_write_end+0x58/0xd2
>> 
>> [...]
>> 
>> A paging error in the kernel, I guess. Such fun to debug, I'm sure!
> 
> Indeed this will be a lot of fun...

It seems to be quite repeatable. I just have to boot and run some disk activity (systemd background operations also seem to suffice). So it is confined to be either some SD card issue or in ext4 FS itself.

I tried older kernels. 6.18.8 has the same effect. 6.12.68 or 6.6.122 do not boot.

> 
> Well, I have a working 6.1.something kernel from DietPi but I am not sure if I can (re)construct that.
> But what I can do is to compare the device trees... There may be something missing...

What I observed is that the current setup uses  starfive/jh7110-starfive-visionfive-2-v1.3b.dtb. I got this from looking into the U-Boot variables of the DietPi setup.
But there is also jh7110-pine64-star64.dtb.
I gave it a try. Well, the problem arrived only a little later after boot:

[ 1325.400723] Oops - store (or AMO) access fault [#1]
[ 1325.400737] Modules linked in: cdns3 cdns_usb_common roles snd_soc_simple_card snd_soc_simple_card_utils phy_jh7110_dphy_rx cdns3_starfive pcie_starfive clk_starfive_jh7110_vout dwmac_starfive stmmac_platform stmmac clk_starfive_jh7110_isp pcs_xpcs clk_starfive_jh7110_aon jh7110_trng spi_cadence_quadspi sfctemp jh7110_pwmdac spi_pl022 clk_starfive_jh7110_stg phy_jh7110_usb phy_jh7110_pcie snd_soc_spdif_tx drm configfs drm_panel_orientation_quirks backlight
[ 1325.400806] CPU: 2 UID: 42 PID: 15741 Comm: store Not tainted 6.19.0-rc8-letux+ #5492 NONE 
[ 1325.400816] Hardware name: Pine64 Star64 (DT)

[ 1325.400887] [<ffffffff80b35e64>] __memset+0x60/0xfe
[ 1325.400893] [<ffffffff802bba74>] folio_zero_new_buffers+0x70/0xae
[ 1325.400900] [<ffffffff802bbb32>] block_write_end+0x80/0x8c
[ 1325.400906] [<ffffffff8032f136>] ext4_da_do_write_end.isra.0+0x32/0x248
[ 1325.400915] [<ffffffff8032f3a4>] ext4_da_write_end+0x58/0xd2
[ 1325.400921] [<ffffffff801c6c2a>] generic_perform_write+0x90/0x1fe
[ 1325.400931] [<ffffffff8031cb62>] ext4_buffered_write_iter+0x56/0xe4

Next idea is to try ext3 and not ext4...

Another observation is that /proc/meminfo only knows about 4GB RAM. There are hints that U-Boot should manipulate the FDT accordingly.

BR,
Nikolaus

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