Introduction

1. What is RISC-V?

RISC-V is an open instruction set architecture (ISA). It is small, cleanly specified, and designed to be extended. That makes it ideal for learning how CPUs execute instructions and how software starts without an operating system.

2. Why bare-metal?

Bare-metal programming gives you direct control over the processor, memory map, and peripherals. It also forces you to understand what the compiler, linker, and startup code are doing, which makes debugging and reverse engineering much easier later.

3. What you will build

You will write small RV32 programs that:

• Set up a stack and enter a C main function.
• Write output via the QEMU virt UART at 0x10000000.
• Run in QEMU system-mode and debug with GDB gdb-multiarch.

4. Summary

• RISC-V is an open ISA that is ideal for learning low-level programming.
• Bare-metal workflows teach you the full toolchain and execution model.
• You will build and run RV32 programs under QEMU with no libc.
• You will use gdb-multiarch for debugging and understanding the execution flow.