13 ms·

RISC-V Mainboard for Framework Laptop 13 is now available

202 points by WithinReason 2y ago

sylware 2y ago
I don't think I can buy this in my country at a reasonable price. It is very hard to pay online for me as amazon broke interop with noscript/basic (x)html browsers a few years ago (and you can pay using local wallet codes with using your credit card info online).
- mort96 2y ago
  It's not difficult to use Firefox. You just don't want to.
  - sylware 2y ago
    How is it humanly possible to miss the point that much? Pure evil AI?
IshKebab 2y ago
Interesting CPU choice. Seems like it's actually intended for image processing... https://www.starfivetech.com/en/site/soc https://www.starfivetech.com/en/site/soc
- picture 2y ago
  Consumer image/video processing is one of the few applications where requirements of low cost, high performance, and tolerance of poor software support and low reliability converge. It makes a lot of sense that StarFive would target that application. Most of the SoC vendors from China are competing in this same space, like Allwinner, Rockchip, Goke, Ingenic, SigmaStar, Ambarella, Fullhan, Xiongmai, etc.
plg 2y ago
[flagged]
- geerlingguy 2y ago
  In this case, I'm guessing targeting a solid portable hardware ecosystem at a development board. The chip on here is slow enough it would be a slog for any kind of day to day use... but if you're testing drivers for something or evaluating RISC-V for some remote use case, a battery powered laptop is a little more convenient than toting around a power supply and dev board + enclosure. I'm guessing the sales numbers will be extremely small—some people who get excited about RISC-V and would consider buying this don't know how slow it is in comparison to even the cheapest Arm SBCs right now.
  - MobiusHorizons 2y ago
    At this point it feels more like a marketing stunt for framework than a legitimate product. Lots of people expect this to be a proper laptop experience in the ballpark of arm or x86, just because of the form factor. I am imagining a bunch of people buying the upgrade kit with the vague idea that it will be in line with some “open” or “libre” goals, but will be severely disappointed at the experience.
    - arp242 2y ago
      Marketing for who? The few thousand people who care? And they have a clear disclaimer it's a dev-focused board; if you expect a "proper laptop experience" then that's on you the basic description of the product. "Targeted towards developers, tinkerers, and early adopters, this platform allows exploration and development within the RISC-V ecosystem. [..] This is very much a developer-focused board to help accelerate maturing the software ecosystem around RISC-V, so we recommend waiting for future RISC-V products if you’re looking for a consumer-ready experience."
      - MobiusHorizons 2y ago
        I’m reacting much more to the initial launch ideo from framework [1] and the hype around it than the product page. I’m glad to see they are calling it out so well at this stage. [1]: https://youtu.be/iMwepyyaj8I?si=AFGEK6He-VWlKQQ9 https://youtu.be/iMwepyyaj8I?si=AFGEK6He-VWlKQQ9
ThinkBeat 2y ago
Cool. Now make a mainboard with a POWER 10 (IBM) and something like the Altra Max M128 Would probably need to create a "hood", extender between the case and they keyboard to fit. and increase the fans a it </s>
- MrDrMcCoy 2y ago
  I would legit love to have a POWER10 laptop. No reason it couldn't be scaled down to laptop power profiles, though I have no idea who would provide a GPU for it.
  - 6SixTy 2y ago
    There's Verisilicon, Imagination, Broadcom, and probably even ARM licensing out GPU IP blocks to anyone with capital. Getting AMD on board could be a little trickier but could be feasible with a compute SOC deal balancing the deal out (this is a pipe dream).
- cassepipe 2y ago
  https://www.phoronix.com/news/IBM-POWER10-Not-All-Open-FW https://www.phoronix.com/news/IBM-POWER10-Not-All-Open-FW Sadly POWER10 is not entirely open and the reasonning behind having a power laptop/computer was to have an entirely open computer
  - inkyoto 2y ago
    Whilst it is true indeed that POWER10 requires an opaque blob of firmware goo, Raptor was supposed to bring a follow-up to POWER9 that uses the Solid Silicon S1[0] instead of POWER10: Raptor yesterday officially announced that we're not getting Power10 systems. The idea is we're going to be getting something better: the Solid Silicon S1. It's Power ISA 3.1 and fully compatible, but it's also a fully blob-free OpenPOWER successor to the POWER9, avoiding Power10's notorious binary firmware requirement for OMI RAM and I/O. […] the S1's specs, and he said it's a PCIe 5.0 DDR5 part running from the high 3GHz to low 4GHz clock range, with the exact frequency range to be determined. (OMI-based RAM not required!) The S1 is bi-endian, SMT-4 and will support at least two sockets with an 18-core option confirmed for certain and others to be evaluated. This compares very well with the Power10, which is also PCIe 5.0, also available as SMT-4 (though it has an SMT-8 option), and also clocks somewhere between 3.5GHz and 4GHz. I have not heard of Solid Silicon before, and their website[1] does not reveal much other than indirectly ascertaining the non-laptop factor of the S1 SoC(?). [0] https://www.talospace.com/2023/10/the-next-raptor-openpower-systems-are.html https://www.talospace.com/2023/10/the-next-raptor-openpower-... [1] https://www.solidsilicon.com/desktop/index.html https://www.solidsilicon.com/desktop/index.html
kristopolous 2y ago
I was just looking at modern Thinkpad T14 offerings (Gen6). They offer ARM snapdragon and AMD. No Intel. https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/c/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadt/ https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/c/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadt/ Times are changing
- throw0101d 2y ago
  > They offer ARM snapdragon and AMD. They seem to come with Windows ARM pre-installed, but if one wanted to (also?) run Linux on them, which distro(es) would be available?
  - betaby 2y ago
    None. I was down-voted during the launch for saying that there won't be any meaningful support from Qualcomm and 6 months later ... there is none. Browse reddit thread to see how thing are (non)working on Qualcomm based laptops.
    - kristopolous 2y ago
      really? I know there's quite a few arm64 distributions ... that's pretty strange. What about WSL2 and what about NetBSD?
      - betaby 2y ago
        "Really" as a surprise or you are confronting the veracity of my statement? No, NetBSD is not working on Qualcomm based laptops. I also know quite a few arm64 distributions ... like LineageOS, which works OK-ish on my phone. This thread however is about laptops in a sense one expects from the laptop, i.e. hardware accelerated video, WiFi 5 and above, bluetooth, woking sleep/resume. I don't understand what exactly is strange here for you.
        kristopolous 2y ago
        They must not care about Linux as much as I think. I thought it's kinda standard these days to release laptops that plausibly work with at least Ubuntu, in some limited way. I must live in a bubble.
mrobot 2y ago
They put the old (55WH vs the newer 61WH) battery in the shell -- Framework you cheapos! I guess they are trying to get rid of the old, smaller batteries. Also, word of warning just don't apply the 3.08 bios update if you have a 12th gen. I've had nothing but problems with the 3.08 bios update without real remediation from framework. Really, don't perform this upgrade without doing a thorough review of the support forums regarding the issues people are having. There was a blog post about the BIOS update that i found here on this site, but i'm having trouble finding it for reference now. Someone had the same issue as i have where sometimes my system just won't boot (no video and error sequence) unless i remove or re-add a memory module. Not that fun.
- adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
  IMO that's a smart choice. This cpu isn't made to be a daily driver. It only is in a laptop chasis to make R&D easier. No one will miss the extra 5WH
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - _nalply 2y ago
    Some people will put it as as small server somewhere, then this battery is like a backup power for servers but built-in. Framework even sells a small case for this sort of usage. If I had skin in that game, I would do this. For developping end-user software, just ssh in and program away!
    - bravetraveler 2y ago
      IIUC, the chemistry with a typical UPS battery would be much more favorable for constant power than a laptop... with probably-questionable management software to boot I say this while truly enjoying my F13; nothing against them
      - MostlyStable 2y ago
boredatoms 2y ago
I hope they can update it with a chip that has the vector extension
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

202 points by WithinReason 2y ago

I don't think I can buy this in my country at a reasonable price. It is very hard to pay online for me as amazon broke interop with noscript/basic (x)html browsers a few years ago (and you can pay using local wallet codes with using your credit card info online).

mort96 2y ago
It's not difficult to use Firefox. You just don't want to.
- sylware 2y ago
  How is it humanly possible to miss the point that much? Pure evil AI?

IshKebab 2y ago

Interesting CPU choice. Seems like it's actually intended for image processing... https://www.starfivetech.com/en/site/soc https://www.starfivetech.com/en/site/soc

picture 2y ago
Consumer image/video processing is one of the few applications where requirements of low cost, high performance, and tolerance of poor software support and low reliability converge. It makes a lot of sense that StarFive would target that application. Most of the SoC vendors from China are competing in this same space, like Allwinner, Rockchip, Goke, Ingenic, SigmaStar, Ambarella, Fullhan, Xiongmai, etc.

plg 2y ago

[flagged]

geerlingguy 2y ago
In this case, I'm guessing targeting a solid portable hardware ecosystem at a development board. The chip on here is slow enough it would be a slog for any kind of day to day use... but if you're testing drivers for something or evaluating RISC-V for some remote use case, a battery powered laptop is a little more convenient than toting around a power supply and dev board + enclosure. I'm guessing the sales numbers will be extremely small—some people who get excited about RISC-V and would consider buying this don't know how slow it is in comparison to even the cheapest Arm SBCs right now.
- MobiusHorizons 2y ago
  At this point it feels more like a marketing stunt for framework than a legitimate product. Lots of people expect this to be a proper laptop experience in the ballpark of arm or x86, just because of the form factor. I am imagining a bunch of people buying the upgrade kit with the vague idea that it will be in line with some “open” or “libre” goals, but will be severely disappointed at the experience.
  - arp242 2y ago
    Marketing for who? The few thousand people who care? And they have a clear disclaimer it's a dev-focused board; if you expect a "proper laptop experience" then that's on you the basic description of the product. "Targeted towards developers, tinkerers, and early adopters, this platform allows exploration and development within the RISC-V ecosystem. [..] This is very much a developer-focused board to help accelerate maturing the software ecosystem around RISC-V, so we recommend waiting for future RISC-V products if you’re looking for a consumer-ready experience."
    - MobiusHorizons 2y ago
      I’m reacting much more to the initial launch ideo from framework [1] and the hype around it than the product page. I’m glad to see they are calling it out so well at this stage. [1]: https://youtu.be/iMwepyyaj8I?si=AFGEK6He-VWlKQQ9 https://youtu.be/iMwepyyaj8I?si=AFGEK6He-VWlKQQ9

ThinkBeat 2y ago

Cool. Now make a mainboard with a POWER 10 (IBM) and something like the Altra Max M128 Would probably need to create a "hood", extender between the case and they keyboard to fit. and increase the fans a it </s>

MrDrMcCoy 2y ago
I would legit love to have a POWER10 laptop. No reason it couldn't be scaled down to laptop power profiles, though I have no idea who would provide a GPU for it.
- 6SixTy 2y ago
  There's Verisilicon, Imagination, Broadcom, and probably even ARM licensing out GPU IP blocks to anyone with capital. Getting AMD on board could be a little trickier but could be feasible with a compute SOC deal balancing the deal out (this is a pipe dream).
cassepipe 2y ago
https://www.phoronix.com/news/IBM-POWER10-Not-All-Open-FW https://www.phoronix.com/news/IBM-POWER10-Not-All-Open-FW Sadly POWER10 is not entirely open and the reasonning behind having a power laptop/computer was to have an entirely open computer
- inkyoto 2y ago
  Whilst it is true indeed that POWER10 requires an opaque blob of firmware goo, Raptor was supposed to bring a follow-up to POWER9 that uses the Solid Silicon S1[0] instead of POWER10: Raptor yesterday officially announced that we're not getting Power10 systems. The idea is we're going to be getting something better: the Solid Silicon S1. It's Power ISA 3.1 and fully compatible, but it's also a fully blob-free OpenPOWER successor to the POWER9, avoiding Power10's notorious binary firmware requirement for OMI RAM and I/O. […] the S1's specs, and he said it's a PCIe 5.0 DDR5 part running from the high 3GHz to low 4GHz clock range, with the exact frequency range to be determined. (OMI-based RAM not required!) The S1 is bi-endian, SMT-4 and will support at least two sockets with an 18-core option confirmed for certain and others to be evaluated. This compares very well with the Power10, which is also PCIe 5.0, also available as SMT-4 (though it has an SMT-8 option), and also clocks somewhere between 3.5GHz and 4GHz. I have not heard of Solid Silicon before, and their website[1] does not reveal much other than indirectly ascertaining the non-laptop factor of the S1 SoC(?). [0] https://www.talospace.com/2023/10/the-next-raptor-openpower-systems-are.html https://www.talospace.com/2023/10/the-next-raptor-openpower-... [1] https://www.solidsilicon.com/desktop/index.html https://www.solidsilicon.com/desktop/index.html

kristopolous 2y ago

I was just looking at modern Thinkpad T14 offerings (Gen6). They offer ARM snapdragon and AMD. No Intel. https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/c/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadt/ https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/c/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadt/ Times are changing

throw0101d 2y ago
> They offer ARM snapdragon and AMD. They seem to come with Windows ARM pre-installed, but if one wanted to (also?) run Linux on them, which distro(es) would be available?
- betaby 2y ago
  None. I was down-voted during the launch for saying that there won't be any meaningful support from Qualcomm and 6 months later ... there is none. Browse reddit thread to see how thing are (non)working on Qualcomm based laptops.
  - kristopolous 2y ago
    really? I know there's quite a few arm64 distributions ... that's pretty strange. What about WSL2 and what about NetBSD?
    - betaby 2y ago
      "Really" as a surprise or you are confronting the veracity of my statement? No, NetBSD is not working on Qualcomm based laptops. I also know quite a few arm64 distributions ... like LineageOS, which works OK-ish on my phone. This thread however is about laptops in a sense one expects from the laptop, i.e. hardware accelerated video, WiFi 5 and above, bluetooth, woking sleep/resume. I don't understand what exactly is strange here for you.
      - kristopolous 2y ago
        They must not care about Linux as much as I think. I thought it's kinda standard these days to release laptops that plausibly work with at least Ubuntu, in some limited way. I must live in a bubble.

mrobot 2y ago

They put the old (55WH vs the newer 61WH) battery in the shell -- Framework you cheapos! I guess they are trying to get rid of the old, smaller batteries. Also, word of warning just don't apply the 3.08 bios update if you have a 12th gen. I've had nothing but problems with the 3.08 bios update without real remediation from framework. Really, don't perform this upgrade without doing a thorough review of the support forums regarding the issues people are having. There was a blog post about the BIOS update that i found here on this site, but i'm having trouble finding it for reference now. Someone had the same issue as i have where sometimes my system just won't boot (no video and error sequence) unless i remove or re-add a memory module. Not that fun.

adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
IMO that's a smart choice. This cpu isn't made to be a daily driver. It only is in a laptop chasis to make R&D easier. No one will miss the extra 5WH
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- _nalply 2y ago
  Some people will put it as as small server somewhere, then this battery is like a backup power for servers but built-in. Framework even sells a small case for this sort of usage. If I had skin in that game, I would do this. For developping end-user software, just ssh in and program away!
  - bravetraveler 2y ago
    IIUC, the chemistry with a typical UPS battery would be much more favorable for constant power than a laptop... with probably-questionable management software to boot I say this while truly enjoying my F13; nothing against them
    - MostlyStable 2y ago

boredatoms 2y ago

I hope they can update it with a chip that has the vector extension

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]