Building LazyVim on RISC-V from Scratch

Background

LazyVim is a Neovim distribution built on lazy.nvim that provides a modern, batteries-included editor experience. However, lazy.nvim requires Neovim to be built with LuaJIT, and upstream LuaJIT does not support RISC-V.

This post documents the full process of building and running Neovim + LazyVim on a RISC-V Linux environment (Ubuntu/Debian), including all the pitfalls and solutions.

Test environment:

• Architecture: riscv64gc
• OS: Ubuntu (bianbu/resolute)
• Board: K3 development board

1. Building RISC-V LuaJIT

Upstream LuaJIT doesn’t support RISC-V, but there’s an actively maintained community port: IgnotaYun/LuaJIT (riscv branch). The project has green CI and is production-ready.

1.1 Install build dependencies

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sudo apt install -y \
  build-essential \
  git

1.2 Build LuaJIT

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git clone -b riscv https://github.com/IgnotaYun/LuaJIT.git ~/luajit-riscv
cd ~/luajit-riscv
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

1.3 Configure dynamic linker

If LuaJIT was installed to /usr/local/lib, make sure the system linker can find it:

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echo "/usr/local/lib" | sudo tee /etc/ld.so.conf.d/luajit.conf
sudo ldconfig

1.4 Verify

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luajit -v
# Should output something like: LuaJIT 2.1.xxxxxxxxxx -- Copyright (C) 2005-2025 Mike Pall. https://luajit.org/

2. Building Neovim

2.1 Install build dependencies

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sudo apt install -y \
  ninja-build \
  gettext \
  libtool \
  libtool-bin \
  autoconf \
  automake \
  cmake \
  g++ \
  pkg-config \
  unzip \
  curl \
  git

2.2 Get the source

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git clone https://github.com/neovim/neovim.git ~/neovim
cd ~/neovim
git checkout stable  # or a specific tag like v0.12.1

2.3 Build third-party dependencies

The key here is -DUSE_BUNDLED_LUAJIT=OFF — this tells Neovim to skip downloading its bundled LuaJIT and use the system-installed RISC-V LuaJIT instead.

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cmake -S cmake.deps -B .deps \
  -DUSE_BUNDLED_LUAJIT=OFF

cmake --build .deps -j$(nproc)

2.4 Build Neovim

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cmake -S . -B build \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

If cmake can’t find the system LuaJIT, specify the paths manually:

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cmake -S . -B build \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -DLUAJIT_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/local/include/luajit-2.1 \
  -DLUAJIT_LIBRARY=/usr/local/lib/libluajit-5.1.so

You can locate the paths with:

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find /usr -name "luajit.h" 2>/dev/null
find /usr -name "libluajit*" 2>/dev/null

2.5 Install

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sudo cmake --install build

2.6 Verify

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nvim --version

The output should contain LuaJIT 2.1.xxx, confirming Neovim is correctly linked against the RISC-V LuaJIT.

3. Installing LazyVim

See the official docs: https://www.lazyvim.org/installation

3.1 Back up existing config (if any)

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mv ~/.config/nvim{,.bak}
mv ~/.local/share/nvim{,.bak}
mv ~/.local/state/nvim{,.bak}
mv ~/.cache/nvim{,.bak}

3.2 Clone LazyVim Starter

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git clone https://github.com/LazyVim/starter ~/.config/nvim
rm -rf ~/.config/nvim/.git

3.3 Launch Neovim

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nvim

On first launch, lazy.nvim will automatically download and install all plugins.

4. Fixing tree-sitter-cli

4.1 Problem

LazyVim uses tree-sitter for syntax highlighting. The tree-sitter-cli npm package has no prebuilt binary for RISC-V, so :TSInstall fails.

4.2 Solution: Install via Cargo

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cargo install tree-sitter-cli

If cargo is not installed:

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curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source ~/.cargo/env

Note: On RISC-V, BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS may need to be set for some crates that use bindgen:

1	export BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS="--target=riscv64-linux-gnu -I/usr/include -I/usr/include/riscv64-linux-gnu"

5. Fixing lua_ls (Lua Language Server)

5.1 Problem

Mason can’t install lua-language-server on RISC-V because there’s no prebuilt binary.

5.2 Solution: Build from source

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sudo apt install -y ninja-build
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/LuaLS/lua-language-server ~/lua-language-server
cd ~/lua-language-server
./make.sh

Add to PATH:

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echo 'export PATH="$HOME/lua-language-server/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

5.3 Tell LazyVim to skip Mason for lua_ls

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-- ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/lsp.lua
return {
  {
    "neovim/nvim-lspconfig",
    opts = {
      servers = {
        lua_ls = {
          mason = false,
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

6. Fixing blink.cmp

6.1 Problem

On startup, nvim shows:

blink.cmp  ENOENT: no such file or directory: ...
blink.cmp  Falling back to Lua implementation due to error while downloading pre-built binary

6.2 Cause

blink.cmp is LazyVim’s default completion plugin. It includes a high-performance fuzzy matching library written in Rust. On startup, it tries to download a prebuilt .so file, but there’s no RISC-V build available, so it falls back to a pure Lua implementation.

6.3 Solution: Build the native library locally

Enter the plugin directory:

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cd ~/.local/share/nvim/lazy/blink.cmp

Build:

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cargo build --release

The output is at target/release/libblink_cmp_fuzzy.so. blink.cmp’s Lua loader automatically searches <plugin-root>/target/release/ for this file — no manual copying needed.

Verify:

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ls target/release/libblink_cmp_fuzzy.so

If the error persists, disable prebuilt downloads in the config (optional):

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-- ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/blink.lua
return {
  {
    "saghen/blink.cmp",
    opts = {
      fuzzy = {
        prebuilt_binaries = {
          download = false,
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

Restart nvim — blink.cmp will now use the locally compiled native Rust library.

Note: After blink.cmp plugin updates, you may need to re-run cargo build --release since the Rust source may have changed.

7. Fixing snacks.nvim indent/scope Error

7.1 Problem

Opening a file in nvim triggers:

Error in BufReadPost Autocommands for "*":
Lua callback: ...snacks.nvim/lua/snacks/scope.lua:136: attempt to index local 'self' (a nil value)

7.2 Cause

It’s unclear whether this is a snacks.nvim bug or a RISC-V LuaJIT compatibility issue.

The likely cause: snacks/scope.lua line 136 uses the __eq metamethod to compare two scope objects. Per the Lua spec, __eq should only be invoked when both operands are the same type and both have __eq. However, the IgnotaYun RISC-V LuaJIT branch may have a subtle behavioral difference in the __eq JIT compilation path, causing nil values to unexpectedly enter the metamethod call, triggering the error.

7.3 Solution: Disable snacks.nvim indent feature

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-- ~/.config/nvim/lua/plugins/snacks.lua
return {
  {
    "folke/snacks.nvim",
    opts = {
      indent = { enabled = false },
    },
  },
}

Impact: You lose indent guide lines and current scope highlighting. This is purely visual — it doesn’t affect editing, LSP, completion, treesitter, or any core functionality.

8. Summary

Recommended shell environment variables

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# ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc
export BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS="--target=riscv64-linux-gnu -I/usr/include -I/usr/include/riscv64-linux-gnu"
export PATH="$HOME/lua-language-server/bin:$PATH"

After completing all the steps above, you’ll have a fully functional LazyVim development environment on RISC-V.