An $8 Ox64 board promises an unusual combination: a tiny, microcontroller-sized device with three RISC-V cores and the ability to run Linux rather than only bare-metal firmware. The project’s appeal comes with an important limitation: when this account was written, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and the SD-card interface were not working. Nor was getting the board to accept firmware straightforward. The author’s goal is to establish communication with the board and eventually boot Linux, documenting the practical obstacles along the way.
Flashing requires a UART connection through TX/RX pins, not the simple USB workflow the author expected. The vendor’s Dev Cube utility crashes under Ubuntu’s Wayland session, a CH340G USB-to-serial adapter fails to complete the handshake, and Dev Cube itself cannot flash the board even after a working serial link is found. The workaround is to configure an Adafruit KB2040 RP2040 board as a serial bridge using Picoprobe, then use the alternative bflb-mcu-tool after modifying its UART code to remove DTR/RTS handling. With that setup, the author successfully flashes a low-level BL808 M0 firmware image and receives startup messages from the Ox64. This is only an initial milestone, not a Linux boot: additional firmware for the D0 core and the operating system still need to be flashed. A later comment also offers a possible Wayland workaround for Dev Cube.
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