diff --git a/init/bash b/init/bash
index d72df1f346..388a2410b9 100644
--- a/init/bash
+++ b/init/bash
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 function show_msg {
   # only echo msg if EESSI_SILENT is unset
   msg=$1
-  if [[ ! -v EESSI_SILENT ]]; then
+  if [[ -z ${EESSI_SILENT+x} ]]; then
     echo "$msg"
   fi
 }
diff --git a/init/eessi_defaults b/init/eessi_defaults
index 3fdfa53976..f44682da93 100644
--- a/init/eessi_defaults
+++ b/init/eessi_defaults
@@ -8,8 +8,20 @@
 # license: GPLv2
 #
 
-export EESSI_CVMFS_REPO="${EESSI_CVMFS_REPO_OVERRIDE:=/cvmfs/pilot.nessi.no}"
-export EESSI_VERSION="${EESSI_VERSION_OVERRIDE:=2023.06}"
+# use different defaults for RISC-V, as we want to redirect to the riscv.eessi.io repo
+#if [[ $(uname -m) == "riscv64" ]]; then
+#    export EESSI_CVMFS_REPO="${EESSI_CVMFS_REPO_OVERRIDE:=/cvmfs/riscv.eessi.io}"
+#    export EESSI_VERSION="${EESSI_VERSION_OVERRIDE:=20240402}"
+#    if [[ -z ${EESSI_SILENT+x} ]]; then
+#        echo "RISC-V architecture detected, but there is no RISC-V support yet in the production repository."
+#        echo "Automatically switching to version ${EESSI_VERSION} of the RISC-V development repository ${EESSI_CVMFS_REPO}."
+#        echo "For more details about this repository, see https://www.eessi.io/docs/repositories/riscv.eessi.io/."
+#        echo ""
+#    fi
+#else
+    export EESSI_CVMFS_REPO="${EESSI_CVMFS_REPO_OVERRIDE:=/cvmfs/pilot.nessi.no}"
+    export EESSI_VERSION="${EESSI_VERSION_OVERRIDE:=2023.06}"
+#fi
 # use archdetect by default, unless otherwise specified
 export EESSI_USE_ARCHDETECT="${EESSI_USE_ARCHDETECT:=1}"
 export EESSI_USE_ARCHSPEC="${EESSI_USE_ARCHSPEC:=0}"
diff --git a/init/eessi_environment_variables b/init/eessi_environment_variables
index 1a44b53c41..784dd6c13c 100644
--- a/init/eessi_environment_variables
+++ b/init/eessi_environment_variables
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ function error() {
 function show_msg {
   # only echo msg if EESSI_SILENT is unset
   msg=$1
-  if [[ ! -v EESSI_SILENT ]]; then
+  if [[ -z ${EESSI_SILENT+x} ]]; then
     echo "$msg"
   fi
 }