3 ms·

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

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)?

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)?