9 ms·

Milk-V Second RISC-V SBC – Physically Compatible with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

27 points by kaycebasques 3y ago

sylware 3y ago
oooof... I really need to finally move my self-hosted servers (email/etc) to such risc-v mini-computers namely away from the non-royalty free arm. I have a too big TODO list.
- blacksmith_tb 3y ago
  The Mars isn't for sale yet, so you probably have a little time to prepare... I will be curious to see if most packages will be available for the architecture, I could imagine having to compile some things (slowly).
  - sylware 3y ago
    Well, at first I would have to go thru a compiler, but ultimately, risc-v should be an assembly code sanctuary since it will probably become the worldwide, royalty-free, open and standard ISA.
  - RobotToaster 3y ago
    There's always gentoo I suppose?
  - brucehoult 3y ago
    "Most packages" are completely interchangeable between all RISC-V RV64GC boards running the same OS version (e.g. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS), not to mention the four (so far) using the JH7110 SoC.
  - snvzz 3y ago
    >most packages Over two years ago, 95% of Debian (largest Linux distribution in packages) already built for RISC-V. The last significant exception I was aware of (dotnet) finally merged RISC-V support earlier this year.
    - brucehoult 3y ago
      There are quite a few things that have their own JIT / code generator instead of using the gcc or llvm infrastructure that has worked for years. New ISAs is always the downside of doing your own code generation. Dotnet doesn't yet have a RISC-V JIT. Samsung are currently doing that. A couple of months ago they had it to the point of a command line Hello World working, but there's still probably a 1-year project for a team to finish everything to production quality. There was a message from the maintainer this week that Luajit is getting close to being usable. Java JVM has worked for a long time but without JIT. I think that is also being worked on but I'm not sure the status. There was a blog post this week with the status of Box64 on RISC-V with some benchmark results. It seems to be basically fairly complete but not yet polished.
- tracker1 3y ago
  If you already have the hardware, I wouldn't switch just because of the license myself. ARM is still ahead in perf/watt and the environmental impact for the existing box is already spent. I am glad to see the ball moving forward for Risc-V, I do hope they avoid some of the vendor locked extensions that many ARM based SBCs seem to face. Feels like anything other than RPi so far has been an exercise in relative frustration. I have my SiFive 2 that I haven't played with yet... with the work I saw a few weeks ago with Haiku might be fun to play around with. https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/kallisti5/2021-11-07_booting_our_risc-v_images/ https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/kallisti5/2021-11-07_booting_o...
  - sylware 3y ago
    The license and the "modern" ISA is so much important, I am ready to pay the price there (non performant critical anyway, should be fine and increase risc-v momentum).
  - brucehoult 3y ago
    > ARM is still ahead in perf/watt Citation needed. The Cortex M23 and M33 seem to have made a good step forward in efficiency compared to RISC-V, but those are microcontrollers. I haven't seen any indication of the Cortex A53/A55 being more efficient than the U74, or the A72 being more efficient than the C910. In fact the reverse. Maybe the A510 / A515 / A520 is better, but you can't buy an SBC with those. > the environmental impact for the existing box is already spent. That is certainly true.
    - sylware 3y ago
      How much "environmental impact" are you ready to pay to get digital freedom from a toxic IP (non royalty free) like ARM (same for x86)?
gary_0 3y ago
Another StarFive JH7110 board, eh? It's shaping up to be a popular chip. I wonder how hard it would be for a different chip vendor to produce a pin-compatible clone? Please, overwhelm me with cheap interchangeable RISC-V SoC's... my body is ready.
- rektide 3y ago
  Are there any Imagination gpu drivers this time around or is this another unusable Imagination gpu, alike Intel GMA500 / Poulsbo a decade & a half ago?
  - snvzz 3y ago
    >Are there any Imagination gpu drivers this time around Proprietary drivers are available and work. Open source drivers in the form of a mesa3d driver are being developed by a third party employed by Imagination Technology. We know about this effort since early last year. I do not know the state of the effort.
- brucehoult 3y ago
  That's four so far, counting the PineTab-V. It's a nice chip, but would have been SO MUCH better if it has been available to board-makers in September 2021, as originally planned for the BeagleV "Starlight", not in January 2023. In 2021 it was clearly a much faster alternative to the Allwinner D1 with a single 1.0 GHz core, which had started arriving in customer hands in late June. The D1's C906 core had a vector unit, but that was the only real advantage. Now in the first half of 2023 the Pi 3-class JH7110 is running up against the Pi 4-class TH1520. The VisionFive 2 and Star64 started arriving in the hands of customers in February and April, while the considerably faster (higher MHz and OoO, plus vector units) TH1520-based LicheePi4A started arriving in May. There will no doubt be other TH1520 boards soon too. So far the 8 GB JH7110 boards are roughly $40 cheaper than an equivalently outfitted 8 GB TH1520 board. Perhaps the effective difference is more than that as as VisionFive 2 and Star64 have M.2 or PCIe while the LP4A doesn't. So maybe there is a place for both. Let's see what price the Mars will be.
  - 3y ago
rektide 3y ago
An extra USB 3.0 port is a nice start. PCIe and gigabit is also great. Hopefully though we see throughoutputs really scale up somehow on SBC. A couple great USB4 ports in 2026 or whenever would be sweet.

27 points by kaycebasques 3y ago

oooof... I really need to finally move my self-hosted servers (email/etc) to such risc-v mini-computers namely away from the non-royalty free arm. I have a too big TODO list.

blacksmith_tb 3y ago
The Mars isn't for sale yet, so you probably have a little time to prepare... I will be curious to see if most packages will be available for the architecture, I could imagine having to compile some things (slowly).
- sylware 3y ago
  Well, at first I would have to go thru a compiler, but ultimately, risc-v should be an assembly code sanctuary since it will probably become the worldwide, royalty-free, open and standard ISA.
- RobotToaster 3y ago
  There's always gentoo I suppose?
- brucehoult 3y ago
  "Most packages" are completely interchangeable between all RISC-V RV64GC boards running the same OS version (e.g. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS), not to mention the four (so far) using the JH7110 SoC.
- snvzz 3y ago
  >most packages Over two years ago, 95% of Debian (largest Linux distribution in packages) already built for RISC-V. The last significant exception I was aware of (dotnet) finally merged RISC-V support earlier this year.
  - brucehoult 3y ago
    There are quite a few things that have their own JIT / code generator instead of using the gcc or llvm infrastructure that has worked for years. New ISAs is always the downside of doing your own code generation. Dotnet doesn't yet have a RISC-V JIT. Samsung are currently doing that. A couple of months ago they had it to the point of a command line Hello World working, but there's still probably a 1-year project for a team to finish everything to production quality. There was a message from the maintainer this week that Luajit is getting close to being usable. Java JVM has worked for a long time but without JIT. I think that is also being worked on but I'm not sure the status. There was a blog post this week with the status of Box64 on RISC-V with some benchmark results. It seems to be basically fairly complete but not yet polished.
tracker1 3y ago
If you already have the hardware, I wouldn't switch just because of the license myself. ARM is still ahead in perf/watt and the environmental impact for the existing box is already spent. I am glad to see the ball moving forward for Risc-V, I do hope they avoid some of the vendor locked extensions that many ARM based SBCs seem to face. Feels like anything other than RPi so far has been an exercise in relative frustration. I have my SiFive 2 that I haven't played with yet... with the work I saw a few weeks ago with Haiku might be fun to play around with. https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/kallisti5/2021-11-07_booting_our_risc-v_images/ https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/kallisti5/2021-11-07_booting_o...
- sylware 3y ago
  The license and the "modern" ISA is so much important, I am ready to pay the price there (non performant critical anyway, should be fine and increase risc-v momentum).
- brucehoult 3y ago
  > ARM is still ahead in perf/watt Citation needed. The Cortex M23 and M33 seem to have made a good step forward in efficiency compared to RISC-V, but those are microcontrollers. I haven't seen any indication of the Cortex A53/A55 being more efficient than the U74, or the A72 being more efficient than the C910. In fact the reverse. Maybe the A510 / A515 / A520 is better, but you can't buy an SBC with those. > the environmental impact for the existing box is already spent. That is certainly true.
  - sylware 3y ago
    How much "environmental impact" are you ready to pay to get digital freedom from a toxic IP (non royalty free) like ARM (same for x86)?

gary_0 3y ago

Another StarFive JH7110 board, eh? It's shaping up to be a popular chip. I wonder how hard it would be for a different chip vendor to produce a pin-compatible clone? Please, overwhelm me with cheap interchangeable RISC-V SoC's... my body is ready.

rektide 3y ago
Are there any Imagination gpu drivers this time around or is this another unusable Imagination gpu, alike Intel GMA500 / Poulsbo a decade & a half ago?
- snvzz 3y ago
  >Are there any Imagination gpu drivers this time around Proprietary drivers are available and work. Open source drivers in the form of a mesa3d driver are being developed by a third party employed by Imagination Technology. We know about this effort since early last year. I do not know the state of the effort.
brucehoult 3y ago
That's four so far, counting the PineTab-V. It's a nice chip, but would have been SO MUCH better if it has been available to board-makers in September 2021, as originally planned for the BeagleV "Starlight", not in January 2023. In 2021 it was clearly a much faster alternative to the Allwinner D1 with a single 1.0 GHz core, which had started arriving in customer hands in late June. The D1's C906 core had a vector unit, but that was the only real advantage. Now in the first half of 2023 the Pi 3-class JH7110 is running up against the Pi 4-class TH1520. The VisionFive 2 and Star64 started arriving in the hands of customers in February and April, while the considerably faster (higher MHz and OoO, plus vector units) TH1520-based LicheePi4A started arriving in May. There will no doubt be other TH1520 boards soon too. So far the 8 GB JH7110 boards are roughly $40 cheaper than an equivalently outfitted 8 GB TH1520 board. Perhaps the effective difference is more than that as as VisionFive 2 and Star64 have M.2 or PCIe while the LP4A doesn't. So maybe there is a place for both. Let's see what price the Mars will be.
- 3y ago

rektide 3y ago

An extra USB 3.0 port is a nice start. PCIe and gigabit is also great. Hopefully though we see throughoutputs really scale up somehow on SBC. A couple great USB4 ports in 2026 or whenever would be sweet.