The Ox64 is an $8 RISC-V computer running Linux with three capable cores, but it’s not plug-and-play. At launch, ethernet, Wi-Fi, and SD-card support are missing, and it behaves more like a UNIX machine than a microcontroller. Programming requires UART TX/RX pins (GPIO14/15 + GND), not USB like Arduino or Raspberry Pi Pico.
Flashing tool Dev Cube crashes on Ubuntu Wayland—switch to Xorg or use bflb-mcu-tool instead. A CH340G USB-to-serial adapter may fail handshake; workaround: use an RP2040 (e.g., KB2040) as a serial bridge. Connect GPIO-4 to GPIO-15 and GPIO-5 to GPIO-14, plus grounds.
Load picoprobe via BOOT + UF2, then flash `low_load_bl808_m0.bin` using `bflb-mcu-tool --chipname=bl808 --port=/dev/ttyACM2 --baudrate=2000000 --firmware=out/low_load_bl808_m0.bin`. Success yields serial output: “dynamic memory init success... E907 start...”.
Full Linux boot requires flashing D0 and OS later. Caveat emptor — this is a hobbyist’s challenge, not a consumer device.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing