4 ms·

Interesting hardware, but there's little mention of software support and no price listed. I have a feeling if you sprung for this you would be buying an expens

Interesting hardware, but there's little mention of software support and no price listed. I have a feeling if you sprung for this you would be buying an expensive project with lots of driver work left to do. Hope your Mandarin is good enough to read the tech manuals that will probably be near impossible to obtain and full of errors.

Y_Y 2y ago
> The Milk-V Jupiter supports Ubuntu and CASA OS, which are specifically tailored for RISC-V NAS applications. Not everything runs on risc-v, but plenty does and you can look at Ubuntu's repos to see for yourself.
mouse_ 2y ago
The graphics chips in these are completely proprietary and will likely never see kernel updates. It's e-waste on arrival.
- monocasa 2y ago
  It's not going quickly, but IMG has been working on upstreaming drivers for this line of GPUs in mesa and the kernel. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/tree/main/src/imagination?ref_type=heads https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/tree/main/src/ima... https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/drivers/gpu/drm/imagination https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/drivers/gpu/d...
- snvzz 2y ago
  Imagination Technologies has a team of developers working on open source drivers based on mesa3d stack. But if you want support Right Now, plug an AMD video card into that PCIe slot.
Pet_Ant 2y ago
> I have a feeling if you sprung for this you would be buying an expensive project with lots of driver work left to do. I think that is exactly the stage in the life-cycle that the ecosystem is currently in. This is for those people to start working. The previous level of getting the Linux kernel working is done, now it's onto the drivers. After this will be ironing out power management and Wayland issues. Only after that will it be ready for the end consumer. Thousand miles, first steps sort of thing, but yeah, it's not ready for Linus to drop and then benchmark CS2 on.
- snvzz 2y ago
  This Explaining Computers[0] video, covering a different board with the same SoC (BPi-F3), shows the ecosystem is surprisingly farther along than you give it credit for. This whole process of bootstrapping RISC-V ecosystem did not start yesterday; it's been going for several years now. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZGryhBnkV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZGryhBnkV0
brucehoult 2y ago
Many other other machines already shipping (Banana Pi BPI-F3) or announced (SpacemiT Muse Book, Muse Box, Muse Pi; Sipeed Lichee Pi 3A) are using the same SoC. The BPI-F3 with 4 GB RAM costs $74, models with 8 GB and 16 GB are on the way. By virtue of having 8 cores it's the fastest cheap RISC-V SoC currently available (only the 64 core SG2042 in Milk-V's own $2500 "Pioneer" workstation is faster). It's also one of only two currently shipping SoCs supporting the latest RVA22+Vector ISA specification. The other one, which shipped in November, is single core with 0.5 GB RAM, so this is far more practical as a PC. So you can be pretty sure there is going to be a LOT of attention and work on this SoC. At least until it is overtaken by something faster. Two generations of faster, but still inexpensive, SoCs are expected this year: 1) SiFive P550-based quad core with about 2x the per-core performance, 1.5x from IPC and 1.5x from MHz, also RVA22 but lacking vector; 2) SiFive P670-based 16 core SG2380 with about 3x the per-core performance, 2x from IPC and similar MHz to P550, full RVA22+Vector. This SoC will leapfrog currently shipping (or known) Arm SBCs such as the Pi 5 and RK3588 boards (Rock 5, Orange Pi 5). There is also the 64 core SG2044, an SG2042 updated to RVA22+Vector specifications. It will still have about the same per-core performance as this SpacemiT SoC (but a LOT of cores), and I don't expect it to be cheap. The biggest problem with RISC-V at the moment is that we're seeing -- and will continue to see for some years -- a 2x or more per year improvement in performance of inexpensive mass-produced hardware, so ANYTHING you buy is sure to be quickly eclipsed. Similar to the 1990s in x86 land, which started with everyone using the 33 MHz 80386 and ended with 1.2 GHz Pentium III and the announcement of Pentium 4 and Amd64/x86_64. Except current RISC-V hardware (e.g. this machine) is already at late Pentium III performance per core (but 8 cores and 64 bit and better than AVX vector/SIMD), with early Core-i7 performance (but more cores) coming THIS YEAR. Everyone is quickly converging on the RVA22 instruction set spec (with or without the optional Vector), a big step up from the previous RV64GC (now renamed RVA20) common base ISA. The RVA23 spec (which among other things makes Vector compulsory) will be ratified soon, with hardware in maybe 12-24 months.

Y_Y 2y ago

> The Milk-V Jupiter supports Ubuntu and CASA OS, which are specifically tailored for RISC-V NAS applications. Not everything runs on risc-v, but plenty does and you can look at Ubuntu's repos to see for yourself.

mouse_ 2y ago

The graphics chips in these are completely proprietary and will likely never see kernel updates. It's e-waste on arrival.

monocasa 2y ago
It's not going quickly, but IMG has been working on upstreaming drivers for this line of GPUs in mesa and the kernel. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/tree/main/src/imagination?ref_type=heads https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/tree/main/src/ima... https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/drivers/gpu/drm/imagination https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/latest/source/drivers/gpu/d...
snvzz 2y ago
Imagination Technologies has a team of developers working on open source drivers based on mesa3d stack. But if you want support Right Now, plug an AMD video card into that PCIe slot.

Pet_Ant 2y ago

> I have a feeling if you sprung for this you would be buying an expensive project with lots of driver work left to do. I think that is exactly the stage in the life-cycle that the ecosystem is currently in. This is for those people to start working. The previous level of getting the Linux kernel working is done, now it's onto the drivers. After this will be ironing out power management and Wayland issues. Only after that will it be ready for the end consumer. Thousand miles, first steps sort of thing, but yeah, it's not ready for Linus to drop and then benchmark CS2 on.

snvzz 2y ago
This Explaining Computers[0] video, covering a different board with the same SoC (BPi-F3), shows the ecosystem is surprisingly farther along than you give it credit for. This whole process of bootstrapping RISC-V ecosystem did not start yesterday; it's been going for several years now. 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZGryhBnkV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZGryhBnkV0

brucehoult 2y ago

Many other other machines already shipping (Banana Pi BPI-F3) or announced (SpacemiT Muse Book, Muse Box, Muse Pi; Sipeed Lichee Pi 3A) are using the same SoC. The BPI-F3 with 4 GB RAM costs $74, models with 8 GB and 16 GB are on the way. By virtue of having 8 cores it's the fastest cheap RISC-V SoC currently available (only the 64 core SG2042 in Milk-V's own $2500 "Pioneer" workstation is faster). It's also one of only two currently shipping SoCs supporting the latest RVA22+Vector ISA specification. The other one, which shipped in November, is single core with 0.5 GB RAM, so this is far more practical as a PC. So you can be pretty sure there is going to be a LOT of attention and work on this SoC. At least until it is overtaken by something faster. Two generations of faster, but still inexpensive, SoCs are expected this year: 1) SiFive P550-based quad core with about 2x the per-core performance, 1.5x from IPC and 1.5x from MHz, also RVA22 but lacking vector; 2) SiFive P670-based 16 core SG2380 with about 3x the per-core performance, 2x from IPC and similar MHz to P550, full RVA22+Vector. This SoC will leapfrog currently shipping (or known) Arm SBCs such as the Pi 5 and RK3588 boards (Rock 5, Orange Pi 5). There is also the 64 core SG2044, an SG2042 updated to RVA22+Vector specifications. It will still have about the same per-core performance as this SpacemiT SoC (but a LOT of cores), and I don't expect it to be cheap. The biggest problem with RISC-V at the moment is that we're seeing -- and will continue to see for some years -- a 2x or more per year improvement in performance of inexpensive mass-produced hardware, so ANYTHING you buy is sure to be quickly eclipsed. Similar to the 1990s in x86 land, which started with everyone using the 33 MHz 80386 and ended with 1.2 GHz Pentium III and the announcement of Pentium 4 and Amd64/x86_64. Except current RISC-V hardware (e.g. this machine) is already at late Pentium III performance per core (but 8 cores and 64 bit and better than AVX vector/SIMD), with early Core-i7 performance (but more cores) coming THIS YEAR. Everyone is quickly converging on the RVA22 instruction set spec (with or without the optional Vector), a big step up from the previous RV64GC (now renamed RVA20) common base ISA. The RVA23 spec (which among other things makes Vector compulsory) will be ratified soon, with hardware in maybe 12-24 months.