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BeagleV-Ahead RISC-V board
- greatgib 3y agoI like very much the BBB, but here the price point is way too excessive. Around 135€. It is the price range of a NUC.
- nvy 3y agoI have a few Beaglebone Blacks kicking around the house and they're great. I've always felt the Beagle boards were superior to Raspberry Pis, and that the RPi mostly succeeded because of better marketing and outreach efforts. It's nice to see the project still chugging along
- 542458 3y agoI'd also say it's that the RPis are generally much cheaper and also offer (subjectively) better I/O. For example, A BeaglePlay costs about twice what a Pi 4 Model B/4GB does in my local market. The BeaglePlay has half the ram, only one USB 2 port to the Pi's two, none of the Pi's USB 3 connectors, way fewer GPIOs, only one HDMI, no audio, etc. I do like that BeagleBoards have onboard flash though.
- nomel 3y agoMy favorite part of the BeagleBoard are the PRU's: two little 200Mhz realtime coprocessors. [1] [1] https://beagleboard.org/pru https://beagleboard.org/pru
- rasz 3y agoI dont see PRUs mentioned for this one tho
- cozzyd 3y agothey're a TI thing, so very unlikely they exist here
- meatmanek 3y agoI think if they had invested in a beginner-friendly toolchain for the PRU (maybe something like an Arduino core with a virtual serial port to pass data back and forth without forcing people to implement ring buffers in shared memory), they could've carved out a much larger niche for the Beaglebone. Nowadays, there are fast hobbyist-accessible microcontrollers with USB or wifi support that can fill a lot of the same niches, so I think they sorta missed the boat.
- spott 3y agoBeaglePlay also has sub-1Ghz wireless, (along with 2.4Ghz programmable wireless), a PRU (essentially a built-in microprocessor suitable for realtime I/O work). The core processor supports CAN, and a bunch of other features, but I'm not sure if these are broken out in a way that is usable. Beagleboards are just different than RPis. They aren't really trying to be the same thing. RPis are small computers with simple GPIO meant for turning on and off things, Beagleboards are computer/microprocessor hybrids with GPIO meant for doing realtime I/O.
- jgalt212 3y agoAre PRUs their version of the RP 2040's Programmable IO (PIO)?
- nvy 3y agoPRU stands for Programmable Real-time Unit. The soc on the original Black had two 200MHz PRUs which ran independently of the main processor and could be used for signalling and sensing tasks that require tight timing guarantees, and can then trigger interrupts on the main CPU.
- jgalt212 3y agoso yes, then.
- m00x 3y agoIt's kind of a middle ground, it looks more like a barebones MCU. RP2040's PIO is extremely limited with only 9 available instructions, this looks a bit more involved, but functionally it's very similar.
- crest 3y agoThe PRUs are simple single-issue in-order CPUs designed to make cycle-counting easy. They are more than an accidentally turing complete useful combination of a down-counter and shift-register. Don't get me wrong the RP2040 PIO is a very flexible, powerful peripheral for a sub-$1 MCU. A single PRU is probably larger than the whole RP2040.
- cozzyd 3y agoIt depends on the application. BBBs come in industrial variants (the Pis don't, so good luck using them in certain contexts), and have more UARTs, i2c and SPI buses, not to mention the PRUs...
- Kadin 3y agoI guess... but if industrial is really their market, I think they need to up their game in terms of documentation. "Real" industrial embedded modules tend to come with reams of documentation covering almost down to the silicon. You pay for that, of course, because writing documentation costs money, but so is having your engineers spend time twiddling bits and poking at undocumented registers, trying to figure out why your sample code works and theirs doesn't. That said, I've seen some neat shoestring-budget prototype projects done on BB hardware, so there's some market there. But it seems like their stuff is a bit expensive for low-end learners and hobbyists and missing some of the niceties you get if you convince your boss to buy a ComExpress-based industrial module, or (if you really twist their arm) something like the Arnouse BioDigital SBCs.
- cozzyd 3y agosure, there are better options, but we don't have "engineers" and instead "grad students" :).
- bsder 3y ago> I'd also say it's that the RPis are generally much cheaper IF you can actually get one. That's a REALLY big IF. RPis have been subsidized for a long time. The fact that the subsidy is gone means that they don't seem to be willing to release them to we plebians very much anymore. They're fine releasing them to T-Mobile, though. Anybody not a pure hobbyist left the RPi space long ago.
- mlyle 3y ago> Anybody not a pure hobbyist left the RPi space long ago. Actually, the constrained supply is because during COVID and aftermath they decided to support industrial customers to the detriment of hobbyist supply. They're currently cranking out a million units per month and supply is returning to retail. https://rpilocator.com/ https://rpilocator.com/ was completely bare a few weeks ago, and now there's a lot of retailers with stock (though it's still not where it should be).
- geerlingguy 3y agoRestocks have shot through the roof, and buying restrictions are being lifted here and there. I found Pi 4 and Pi Zero in stock both times I visited Micro Center this month, and when I needed one a couple weeks ago I saw it was available at PiShop.us too... I think this month it really shifted from "trickling availability" to full deluge. Right now people like me who've wanted one but have been holding off are finally making our purchases. Once that appetite is filled, I can imagine we'll just see some places with steady stock. Still waiting on CM4 though. Those are still backordered and out of stock most places.
- mlyle 3y agoDigikey has CM4's right now-- 270 in stock.
- Kadin 3y ago> Anybody not a pure hobbyist left the RPi space long ago. I suspect a lot of hobbyists have left too, and that's why there's so many not-quite-knockoff SBCs on the market (ranging from the respectable OrangePis to weird fly-by-night stuff on AliExpress made by a company that's already out of business before your order arrives). But I don't know how many people are using alternatives because they want to use alternatives. Raspberry Pis have been like hen's teeth for a couple of years now. If you have a NIB Pi4, until recently you could sell that sucker and probably by 3 OrangePis instead. But if RPis were the same price? I think they'd sell like hotcakes just like they did a few years ago, and you'd see them in every random project on Youtube. I don't know of any SBC (other than very high-end industrial embedded modules) that are as well-documented as the Pis. I'm not sure the Pico and Pico W are going to make as much of a splash as the original did (it's harder for people to get started with an overgrown microcontroller than it is a tiny PC), but I expect them to sell very well, too. Maybe they won't show up in every disposable pregnancy test and lightbulb like the ESPs and Nordics, but I suspect we'll see them in some commercial products too.
- squarefoot 3y agoPRU aside, BeagleBoards/Bones mount eMMC memory which offers much higher reliability compared to microSD cards. RPis are great for tinkering and prototyping, but I wouldn't feel safe employing them where uptime is important.
- genmud 3y agoYou can get CM4s with eMMC memory now, but if I was doing a CM4, might as well just use an nvme ssd.
- imtringued 3y agoYeah, NVMe prices have dropped so much you can get hundreds of GB for like 15€.
- tracker1 3y agoAgreed there, I've seen horrible reliability on (micro)SD cards for these little project boards. For RPi, usually use SSD over USB for primary boot, there are some nice case options for this, if you don't mind the space. Over the pandemic, started using more of the mini intel boxes in the sub-$300 space, just because of availability and price gouging.
- m0th87 3y agoI’ve heard Beaglebone Blacks are great (never used them), but have to say the experience with Blue was awful. I had a hardware defect that’s apparently commonplace. It gave me the feeling (maybe unjustified) that there’s a low bar for slapping the Beaglebone label on a product. In contrast, none of my several RPi’s have had any hardware issues, and I’m pretty brutal with them.
- rootbear 3y agoThe linux image on the beagleboard site for the Black is three years old. Is it possible to just boot generic ARM linux on the Black now? Is there another site for official images?
- lsllc 3y agoRobert C Nelson's OMAP Image Builder is excellent. You can use it to build Debian or Ubuntu images for the Ti AM335/OMAP (e.g. BeagleBone Black) SoM: https://github.com/RobertCNelson/omap-image-builder https://github.com/RobertCNelson/omap-image-builder I believe Robert is an applications engineer with Digikey; he does stellar work on this, thank you RCN!
- neilv 3y ago> System on chip: Alibaba T-Head TH1520 Why is this not a TI SoC?
- delfinom 3y agoTI doesn't make RISCV anything. It's why they called it the BeagleV ;)
- LeifCarrotson 3y agoTI does not make any RISC-V processors. I've been quite happy with the documentation for the AM335x processors on the standard, ARM-based Beaglebone Black. But the readme at [1] is exactly why I'm reluctant to pick this board: > Tracking mainline u-boot/kernel with T-Head patches as needed > Additional SoC details (Chinese language is good) - pointers to licensed IP is fine > Clear legal path to usage: >> Verify the IP in the SoC is licensed for use >> Verify the IP user documentation can be public [emphasis original, why not the developer documentation?] >> Signed 3P agreement > SDK source required to test board > Documentation needs to launch: >> Additional SoC details (Chinese language is good) - pointers to licensed IP is fine You'll pay more for an NXP, TI, or ST-branded SOC than for an Allwinner, Rockchip, or "T-head" one, but even if all you're paying for is documentation it's well worth it IMO. Edit: It's great that the processor core is an "XuanTie C910 open-source RTL RISC-V". Open-source RTL, wow! The Verilog is up on GitHub [2]! You'll never get that from TI! But the processor core is only a small part of the SOC, there's a ton of other peripherals and other closed-source, closed-documentation IP to run them. [1]: https://git.beagleboard.org/beaglev-ahead/beaglev-ahead/-/blob/main/README.md https://git.beagleboard.org/beaglev-ahead/beaglev-ahead/-/bl... [2]: https://github.com/T-head-Semi/openc910/blob/main/C910_RTL_FACTORY/gen_rtl/cpu/rtl/openC910.v https://github.com/T-head-Semi/openc910/blob/main/C910_RTL_F...
- magios 3y ago$150-$180 seems expensive for 4gb ram and 16gb flash when you can get an sbc with the same soc, the sipeed licheepi 4a with 16gb of ram and 128gb flash for $180, or $120 for 8gb ram and 8gb flash, or $135 for 8gb ram and 32gb flash
- progbits 3y agoHow's the software support for sipeed stuff? Every time I opted for cheaper clone of beagleboard or RPi I ended up regretting it when I inevitably had to spend hours building custom kernel patches and struggling to get it working reliabily. The more expensive boards usually work out of the box with mainline kernel. For some that can be worth the extra $50.
- magios 3y agowell, if the soc is the same, thus same cpu, gpu, and npu, kernel and userspace support should be also roughly equal, tho the device tree will differ between the two devices. i do agree that many of these sbc computers have poor initial support and many end up remaining that way. perhaps we should be requiring that mainline linux support, and working drm drivers, for gpu, exist before the product is released.
- mat_epice 3y agoWho should require it? And how will it be enforced?
- progbits 3y agoIf it is just device tree that should be less painful, and probably also faster to upstream. I'm just hesitant to buy one of those without having some 3rd party confirm everything works well out of the box, and the more obscure the device the harder to find such accounts.
- riskable 3y agoAs someone who's bought many RPi-like boards and clones let me tell you: Minor differences in price/performance are unimportant. There's another factor that's so much more important it makes boards like the Beaglebone and RPi seem like ultra high performance bargains in comparison: Software/kernel support. Every goddamned RPi-like SBC seems to require a very, very specific version of the Linux kernel that has been patched to hell and back. Almost always bundled with binary blobs/firmware that only work with that very specific version of the kernel. None of these patches get upstreamed and the binary blobs/ultra proprietary who-knows-wtf-its-doing required firmware never get updated after the release. This means that you'll be stuck with whatever version of the kernel that shipped with the device forever. Complete with all the bugs and vulnerabilities that get discovered later. Never again! Either the vendor needs a history of staying on top of things or they need to make some serious promises about upstreaming kernel patches and drivers. Example of a terrible SBC vendor you should never buy from: Orange. All the OrangePi SBCs are exactly as I described. You can expect any bug or security issue that exists at release to be a problem with that board forever. They will never get fixed. They might release an update or two within a few months of release (if it's real bad) but that's all you'll ever get.
- cbm-vic-20 3y ago"2GHz quad-core RISC-V 64GCV Xuantie C910 central processing unit (CPU)" The datasheet doesn't mention Vector (V) extension support. Is this an error on the Beagleboard page?
- camel-cdr 3y agoMaybe it's because the C910 + V is now sometimes called C920, I think they changed their branding on that.
- linmob 3y agoNo, unfortunately not - the TH1520 SoC comes with some Vector extension support - but rev 0.7 (IIRC), not 1.0 which one would rather want.
- camel-cdr 3y agoNote that there are currently no consumer rvv 1.0 cores out there. You also can't expect much support for pre ratification rvv. I needed to patch vector support into the ubuntu build for my MangoPi MQ pro board, and use an old toolchain to be able to compile and test my rvv 0.7.1 code.
- brucehoult 3y agoSure you'd like RVV 1.0, but there is currently zero shipping RVV 1.0 hardware. You might see poor price/performance EVBs with RVV 1.0 in 2024, e.g. $500-$1000+ with similar specs to this. I don't think you're going to see anything like a quad core 2.0 GHz OoO (with 2 OoO vector pipelines) board with RVV 1.0 for $150 until 2026 at the earliest.
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoOverall nice looking board. I used to scoff at PowerVR GPUs as being unsupportable & worthless, but progress has been quite good lately. Only 3 SoC supported & not this but porting should go relatively smoothly now. Price feels high. Elephant in the room: what the heck is that USB micro 3.0 connector doing there? Yikes! What an ugly relic. And that's the only USB on the board.
- prabhu-yu 3y agoAgree, Any reason why is the Type-C not used?
- johnwalkr 3y agoYeah, that is my comment as well. It looks like it's also not enough to power it, you need to use the barrel jack. On the original beaglebone and beaglebone black, a nice feature is you can connect it by microusb, and this provides power to the board but also bridges your internet connection. So with one cable you get power, ssh into the device, and an internet connection on the device.
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoI wonder if the amazing software support is still as good. The Beaglebone set th highest imaginable watermark for what an SBC experience was out of the box. You plug it in to a computer, boom, there's a networking port available. Accept & immediately the Beaglebone sends a DNS-SD/ZeroConf discovery message out for it's http server. The http server loads a code editor for the device, with some neat embedded samples. Within 10s of unboxing, you're looking at code & live programming the device. Unparalleled experience, to this day, far as I can tell.
- snvzz 3y agoWith a serial console and knowledge of how u-boot works, VisionFive 2 is about as good.
- 3y ago
- sylware 3y ago64bits RISC-V: yes yes yes. H.265/H.264: Where is AV1? Coze risc-v is worldwide royalty free, not h.265/h264. HDMI: same issue than H.265/H.264, I should see a dedicated display usb-c connector (displayport). But I am being excessive, it is going in the right direction, the next step is to remove H.265/H.264 and HDMI royalties. That said, has the GPU a lean, plain and simple C written, vulkan3D open source driver?
- palata 3y agoIf I may ask (I'm pretty bad with hardware, but learning): What does "RISC-V" is royalty free mean? Does that make an RPi more expensive because they have to pay ARM? What do the H.265/H.264 encoder/decoders do? Is that important when connecting a USB camera (converting from whatever the camera provides to H.265/H.264)? And then is it the same thing, i.e. that an RPi is more expensive because it has to pay to use H.265/H.264? More than the royalties, shouldn't we care about binary blobs? The more open the hardware is, the easier it is for the community to maintain it, right?
- ansible 3y ago> What does "RISC-V" is royalty free mean? Does that make an RPi more expensive because they have to pay ARM? The RISC-V foundation published the specs for RISC-V and the extensions. These are available royalty-free and can be implemented by anyone. There are various chip designers that create RISC-V compatible CPU cores, and you would pay one of these companies to incorporate that design onto your own chip. Or you could adapt one of the open-source CPU designs, but those are not very high-performance. Or you could design your own, like Western Digital has. For an ARM design, you pay a license fee to ARM Ltd, even if you design your own core. So what really matters is how much you are paying to license the CPU core, if you don't design it yourself. > More than the royalties, shouldn't we care about binary blobs? The more open the hardware is, the easier it is for the community to maintain it, right? Yes, but the chip vendor needs to publish full documentation for the hardware too. Without that, it is harder to write your own device driver software.
- darkclouds 3y agoIs this a 100% totally transparent open source sbc?
- Narishma 3y agoNo.
- Jamesmoorez 3y ago[dead]
- SoftTalker 3y agoNitpicking but they really need to have someone proofread their copy.
- Kadin 3y agoThey just want you to know you're not paying for anything except engineering. :)
- WatchDog 3y agoAny benchmarks of the CPU?
- FullyFunctional 3y agoI got 7.64 SPECint2006 on my Lichee Pi 4A @ 1.85 GHz (same processor, different board). Raspberry Pi 4B @ 1.5 GHz gets 9.22 with the same compiler version and flags. In fairness, the Cortex-A72 in the Raspberry Pi is the nth iteration of Arm cores whereas the C910 is essentially the 1st generation (the C906 is completely different and in-order). I wouldn't make too many conclusions based on this about the future of RISC-V and its implementations, but I'm looking forward to the next wave of higher performing cores coming to market.
- brucehoult 3y agoC910 has claimed 6.11/GHz SPECint2006, which at 1.85 GHz would make it 11.3. You might not have the optimal settings. It's also possible that the TH1520 doesn't have enough cache for SPECint. In my own testing building riscv-gnu-toolchain on both I've found the SG2042 EVB with -j4 to be 1.55x the speed of the LicheePi4A. The SG2042 had the same C910 cores but a lot of L2 and L3 cache (and 64 cores, but I limited it to 4 of them for this test). Scaling your 7.64 SPECint by 1.55x gives 11.8, so that's the same ballpark. My VisionFive 2 does the same build 1.13x faster than the LiCheePi4A. That's using the same src&build trees on the same Samsung 2 TB USB3 external SSD. The TH1520 has 64k L1 icache and 64k L1 dcache, plus 1 MB shared L2 cache. The JH7110 in the VF2 has only 32k each L1 icache and dcache, but 2 MB shared L2 cache. The SG2042 has 64k each L1 icache and dcache, 1 MB shared L2 cache per 4 cores (so far, the same as TH1520), 4 MB of local L3 cache per 4 core cluster, and 60 MB of L3 cache on the other 15 clusters that is also usable at about 2/3 the bandwidth (twice faster than RAM). The Pi4 also seems to have only 1 MB L2 cache. Which makes me wonder ... was your code compiled 32 bit or 64 bit?
- FullyFunctional 3y agoMore likely they are using compilers that support their private extensions. I call BS on all vendor supplied benchmark results, that includes SiFive, as they don't really represent results users are likely to get without extensive tuning. ADD: it's unlikely the amount of cache and more likely their quite long L2 hit latency which is a lot longer (in wall-time) than, say a Cortex-A72.
- glimshe 3y agoFor a lot of applications this is really not competitive. You can get an Intel/AMD mini PC on Amazon for a little over $100 these days, running fully supported Linux.
- eek2121 3y agoDo you understand that these boards are the size of a credit card? Those mini PCs are far larger than these. I can take a Raspberry Pi and stick it inside a picture frame, for instance. I actually built an e-reader using a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. Even a full size Raspberry Pi would have fit in the case...an x86 'mini-PC' would not. Sure, I could probably get something x86 that would, but I'd have to spend a ton of money (like hundreds of thousands or millions)
- jeroenhd 3y agoIf you rip the motherboard out of a NUC you'll probably end up with a board of a very similar size. The laptop style cooler takes up more space than the board. The dimensions are different (more square, more USB ports, no GPIO) but they're not as big as you may think. A NUC is about twice the size of a Beaglebone with much better performance and software support, plus the advantage of being able to pick your own RAM and storage options. For something like a picture frame you can easily use a NUC. For an e-reader you'd run into form factor issues for the cooler, but for something that low spec an ESP32 would be even more compact without sacrificing much.
- brucehoult 3y agoNUC is goneburger. Discontinued. Dead.
- mianos 3y agoBut the void has been already filled if by Minisforum and many others. I just got an N100, Dual NIC, 8GRam, 256G mSata SSD with a 9W TDP for AUD $270. I have quite a few NUCs, and they are awesome. It's a shame Intel is getting out of the platform. But, for the money this one I got last week is incredible. It's surprisingly fast and runs on the smallest plugpack I ever saw for a full PC (and it's probably hollow). Running Linux of course. Installed Bookwork and everything works.
- flyingcircus3 3y agoI've been very disappointed with the rollout of their most recent board, Beagleplay. There are all of these self-congratulatory videos of Jason Kridner at trade shows talking about they're making Embedded Linux more accessible/simple. Yet 4 months after release, the quickstart guides are mostly notes to future quickstart guide editors, or otherwise describe workflows that don't actually work.
- kaelinl 3y agoYeah, I had the same experience with the BeagleBone AI-64. Their documentation is extremely lacking. To make it worse, the whole point of the board is TI's ML inference accelerator, and TI's documentation and sample code for it are completely useless. The Beagle hardware is great but it seems to me they just don't have the resources or focus to support the hardware they release.
- synergy20 3y agoI think the newer AI board from beagleboard is "BeagleBone AI" without the "64"? Anyway I was thinking about buying it, but ended up with buying Nvidia's Jetson instead, due to software and documentation difference.
- reesul 3y agoI believe the 64 variant is the newer part. The older one is a 32 bit architecture IIRC. Jetson has a big edge in software and documentation, no doubt. Poor documentation and SDKs seems to be the norm for a lot of embedded processors, especially for the AI acceleration piece. I’m curious for this new beagle board if there’s enough documentation / software to use the AI accelerator.
- blharr 3y agoI had similar frustrations a while ago when using their BeagleBone Black. Being new to embedded linux, it took me weeks to try and figure out how to get fast I/O pin access using their PRU. It took sifting through countless tutorials that were out of date and didn't work
- unwind 3y agoSurely this: 50GFLOPS, 3Mpixel/s Imagination BXM-4-64 graphics processing unit (GPU) Has got to be a typo? 3 million pixels per second is not very impressive, to understate things a bit. Edit: also, in Sweden Digi-Key want almost $180 for this which was more than I expected. Wow.
- jlokier 3y agoIt's a typo. The BXM-4-64 is advertised by Imagination as doing 4 pixels per clock, and 64 FP32 per clock. At 50 GFLOPS, that's roughly 3Gpixel/s, not 3Mpixel/s.
- swetland 3y agoOkay, so is there actual documentation for the SoC used on this critter? I mean a full Databook / Technical Reference Manual, not maybe 30 pages of overview, maybe a list of register base addresses (if you're lucky), and a pile of Linux kernel patches (upstream if you're lucky, but still of less value to someone wanting to actually write code for / port something to the SoC) or an "SDK" containing a bunch of low quality vendor code for the peripherals. I'd love to see a RISC-V SoC (not just a dinky little MCU) that has real / complete documentation. So far I have yet to find any for any of the various RISC-V based SBCs that have shipped.
- yuumei 3y agoAgreed, the best I have found so far is the SiFive Unmatched: https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unmatched https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unmatched which is a full mini-itx motherboard. It's not a SoC though. As far as I can see, the only thing that isn't documented is the DDR startup/training code, which is a binary blob in u-boot. There are a few registers that are undocumented which need to be set to start up but I think the rest is well documented.
- swetland 3y agoSiFive has pretty good documentation for their cores and chips -- they are more PC/Server class (some lowspeed peripherals plus PCIE and Ethernet) than SoC style. The databook does not have register level docs for PCIE and Ethernet but both look like off-the-shelf IP (hopefully documented somewhere -- I haven't investigated) but otherwise seems pretty thorough. https://www.sifive.com/documentation https://www.sifive.com/documentation In addition to a documented RV64 SoC, it'd be cool to see some RV32 MCUs that are a little beefier -- more competitive with the mid-range Cortex M4 and M7 stuff (more peripherals, more SRAM, etc) -- instead of the existing stuff that looks similar to very tiny M0/M3 devices.
- kramerger 3y agoThis is a Wujian 600 from Alibaba (!). To my knowledge there is currently no publicly available documentation from the chip manufacturer. Was the idea of an open ISA leading to an open SoC was just wishful thinking?
- pjmlp 3y agoAh Beagleboard, what everyone was reaching for, before Arduino and Raspberry Pi got famous.
- synergy20 3y agoHere is Beagle board list: https://www.arrow.com/en/research-and-events/videos/comparing-beaglebone-boards https://www.arrow.com/en/research-and-events/videos/comparin... At the moment I have no plan to acquire yet another beagleboard, i.e. this BeagleV, a bit pricey for potential projects at scale, and I don't need those media related ports, though the AI NPU seems nice for edge AI.
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y agoWhat's up with their pricing? It's way too expensive compared to the competition
- ur-whale 3y agoNo USB-C port. No NVME port. Price tag is too high. Shame because the rest of the H/W looks nice.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoLook at the Lichee Pi 4A instead. Same SoC, but USB-C, and cheaper.
- st3fan 3y agoWow $235 CAD. Why is this board so insanely expensive?
- snvzz 3y agoYet another TH1520 board. Note there's several, by different vendors, with different connectivity (e.g. PCIe, M2, wifi/bt) and RAM (4-16GB range). The CPU is a XuanTie C910, which is somewhat faster than SiFive U74 used in the JH7110 (VisionFive2), and adds pre-spec vector extension (0.7.1). I would still recommend VisionFive2 or Star64 to most people, due to its maturity and much better upstream support[0]. 0. https://rvspace.org/en/project/JH7110_Upstream_Plan https://rvspace.org/en/project/JH7110_Upstream_Plan
- worik 3y ago> I would still recommend VisionFive2 or Star64 to most people, due to its maturity and much better upstream support Is there any confidence to be had from the well established nature of Beagle Bone (whoever the corporate master is). I am entirely unfamiliar with Beagle Bone, so a genuine question
- snvzz 3y agoI do not own a Beaglebone either, can't say. What's true is VisionFive2 is from StarFive, and so is the JH7110, and they seem to care about and understand the value of the software ecosystem, which is why VF2 exists at all. Whereas Beaglebone is not involved in TH1520.
- worik 3y agoI do not understand why VisionFive2 being from StarFive is important. What is VF2? "github.com/starfive-tech/VisionFive2"?
- snvzz 3y agoStarfive is working on upstreaming their SoC's support. Whereas VisionFive2 is a means for Starfive to leverage the community to accelerate support, while at the same time giving them a compelling SBC.
- andrewstuart 3y agoI look at all the chip features like video encoding and video decoding and I think "that is super cool, pity the software will never fully enable the potential of the hardware". Then I return to the ordinary Intel world where stuff works.
- tlamponi 3y agoI'm always looking out for a nice single board computer (SBC), but my phase when I looked at all those (on paper) nice sounding SBCs through rose-tinted glasses is long gone, the only question I want to have answered when checking one out now is: Does it have Linux kernel support in the mainline? I.e., not some weird semi-proprietary patch blob on some GitHub account basing of the 3.18 kernel or so.. If it doesn't, I can close the tab immediately and know for sure that I won't miss out. If it posted patches to the LKML, maybe even in an advanced revision integrating review comments then it might be worth looking at it later.
- imtringued 3y agoThe Vision Five 2 supports uefi and is going for upstream kernel support. https://forum.rvspace.org/t/linux-kernel-6-3/2648/2 https://forum.rvspace.org/t/linux-kernel-6-3/2648/2
- snvzz 3y agoIt'd be more accurate to say that it'll eventually support UEFI and that there's already a proof of concept available. In any event, VF2 is the best option currently, if you wish for a board that cares about upstream support and, in general, just works.
- Kadin 3y agoYes, a hundred times yes. I've been down this road and while it was certainly an interesting learning experience in some of the mechanics of the kernel build process, module dependencies, etc. etc., it was not necessarily productive in moving the projects forward that I wanted to do with the temptingly-cheap Chinese SBCs that I couldn't resist buying. Having learned that lesson, now I won't order something unless it's formally supported by someone like the Armbian project (or Debian, or OpenWRT, etc.). And as interesting as some of the niche SBCs are, sticking to boards that have a broad userbase saves a lot of time when you run into weird errors.