Ubuntu on LX2160A

The official Ubuntu Distribution was tested functional on several SolidRun LX2160A based systems.

Previously this was made possible by using a real EDK-2 based UEFI Firmware and ACPI Tables, which was eventually discontinued due to friction in the ACPI standardization process.

Modern U-Boot ships the required facilities for booting a generic Linux distro designed for UEFI (with Device-Tree).

The instructions below show how Ubuntu Server 26.04 can be installed on SolidRun LX2160A Clearfog-CX and similar boards.

Install UEFI capable Bootloader

Download an SPI Flash bootloader binary from images.solid-run.com suitable to your board and sdram speed. Use "ls-6.6.52-2.2.0" branch and a build dated "2026-07-02" or later.

E.g. on Clearfog-CX with DDR4-2600 get ls-6.6.52-2.2.0/2026-07-02-c90bec0/lx2160a_rev2_cex7_clearfog-cx_multi_2000_700_2600_8_5_2-c90bec0.img.xz.

Some configurations are not available in *_multi_* variant. In that case download separate *_sd_* and *_xspi_ images.

Program the SD-bootable image (after decompression) to a microSD, configure boot-switches for SD-Boot (usually OFF-ON-ON-ON-OFF), and boot to the U-Boot CLI:

Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
=> 

If using separate *_sd_* and *_xspi_* images, swap media now to insert fat- or ext4-formatted drive containing the SPI Flash binary renamed to xspi.img.

Now write the SPI Flash:

=> ls mmc 0:1 /
<DIR>       4096 .
<DIR>       4096 ..
<DIR>      16384 lost+found
        67108864 xspi.img
       748683264 emmc.img

=> load mmc 0:1 $kernel_addr_r xspi.img
67108864 bytes read in 2800 ms (22.9 MiB/s)

=> sf probe
SF: Detected mt35xu512aba with page size 256 Bytes, erase size 128 KiB, total 64 MiB

=> sf update $kernel_addr_r 0 0x4000000
device 0 whole chip
30146560 bytes written, 36962304 bytes skipped in 81.584s, speed 849479 B/s

Finally return boot-switches to SPI (usually OFF-OFF-OFF-OFF-OFF) and remove microSD.

Prepare Installation Media

Download Ubuntu Server for ARM iso, e.g. "ubuntu-26.04-live-server-arm64.iso".

Write the iso to a USB Flash-Drive or microSD using dd, win32diskimager or etcher.io.

Boot Installer

Connect installation media, then power-on the device.

Default boot-order is USB, microSD, eMMC, NVMe, SATA, PXE. If no other OS is detected first, the Installer should boot automatically showing the GRUB Menu:

Ubuntu Installer GRUB Menu

Press E key (no shift) to edit the highlighted "Try or Install Ubuntu Server" option. Navigate to the line starting with "linux", delete the existing "console=tty0" option and append "iommu.passthrough=1":

Ubuntu Installer GRUB Menu, Edit Entry

Press CTRL + X (or F10) to boot the installer.

Wait for the installer to boot fully, eventually it will show a welcome screen. In case network was connected there will be a "View SSH instructions" button at the bottom:

Ubuntu Installer Welcome with SSH Instructions

Install

Follow the Installation Screens.

Disclaimer

SolidRun LX2160A based platforms are supported in Ubuntu as a community effort without formal aggreements or guarantees. Vendor-specific features such as DPDK or 25/40/100Gbps networking might not work well.