2. Attach the board via serial to your system, ensuring power is still not applied
3. Ensure the serial shows up in `/dev/ttyUSB*`, you can see this by running `dmesg` after plugging in the device
```
❯ dmesg
[200199.253566] usb 1-2: new full-speed USB device number 79 using xhci_hcd
[200199.386983] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6001, bcdDevice= 6.00
[200199.386988] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[200199.386990] usb 1-2: Product: FT232R USB UART
[200199.386991] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: FTDI
[200199.386992] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: A50285BI
[200199.390344] ftdi_sio 1-2:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
[200199.390363] usb 1-2: Detected FT232RL
[200199.391207] usb 1-2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
^^^^^^^
^ This becomes /dev/ttyUSB0
```
4.`nix run github:matthewcroughan/visionfive-nix#flashBootloader /dev/ttyUSB0`
5. Wait to be told to apply power to the board this may take a while as U-Boot and OpenSBI are being cross-compiled.
```
Terminal ready
### Apply power to the VisionFive Board ###
```
Once power is applied, picocom will send the OpenSBI/U-Boot payload via XMODEM. You can then flash NixOS or any other distribution that follows the Distro Boot specification[^1] to an SD card and boot it.
###### Why do I need to flash the bootloader?
https://github.com/starfive-tech/u-boot/issues/30
The VisionFive ships with a version of OpenSBI/U-Boot that does not follow the distro-boot specification. NixOS and other distros would like to remain generic, without vendor specific details entering their system. This means booting NixOS requires flashing the bootloader as described above.
