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They wanted to drop support because they didn't have the hardware. Now that they have access to the hardware and not dropping support, I am not sure if it matte

They wanted to drop support because they didn't have the hardware. Now that they have access to the hardware and not dropping support, I am not sure if it matters much. The public doesn't have access to RISC-V hardware and it won't have access anytime soon. The problem to be solved seems availability of the hardware, not support from a small Linux distribution. It's not like we can go to Hetzner and rent a RISC-V server or go to AWS and provision a RISC-V VM. And the availability will only improve if there is enough demand from the market to build such hardware. The EU and China wanting to be less dependant on US tech might help here. Of course, RISC-V hardware should be on par on perf/price with x86 and ARM to tempt someone to switch.

Svip 2y ago
Whilst not exactly easy to come across quite yet, there are some signs of growing public availability for RISC-V: https://frame.work/fr/en/products/deep-computing-risc-v-mainboard https://frame.work/fr/en/products/deep-computing-risc-v-main... https://store.deepcomputing.io/products/dc-roma-riscv-laptop-ii-with-octa-core-cpu https://store.deepcomputing.io/products/dc-roma-riscv-laptop...
- Hazematman 2y ago
  In the original post about dropping RISC-V support chimera Linux mentions that this existing hardware is too slow realistically use for build machines. They specifically mention the JH7110 which powers the framework board and the spacemit k1/m1 that powers the DC Roma laptop. So yeah there is hardware available but expect raspberry pi 3 or lower levels of performance.
  - throawayonthe 2y ago
    [dead]
  - Levitating 2y ago
    Milk-V Pioneer has been the go to build machine for RISC-V (which was used here) which is much faster than a Raspberry Pi 3 for obvious reasons. Felix Yan uses the same machine for building Archlinux on RISC-V.
pengaru 2y ago
[flagged]
Levitating 2y ago
> The public doesn't have access to RISC-V hardware and it won't have access anytime soon. I do! I have a Milk-V Meles and I had a Milk-V Oasis on pre-order before it's cancellation. Been considering buying the Milk-V Megrez.
zik 2y ago
> The public doesn't have access to RISC-V hardware and it won't have access anytime soon. There's plenty of RISC-V hardware around, and anyone can buy it. eg. [1] [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/RISC-V_hardware_list https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/RISC-V_hardware_list
- IshKebab 2y ago
  He mean "desktop grade" hardware. Something that you might compile an entire distro on. Those are all SBCs, and slow ones at that. Nobody is compiling an entire Linux distro on something like a Raspberry Pi 3.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    > Nobody is compiling an entire Linux distro on something like a Raspberry Pi 3. The RISC-V mainboard for the Framework is 4-core 1.5 GHz with 8 GB of RAM. That's leagues better than the hardware that people were compiling Linux on in the 90s and early 2000s.
    - szundi 2y ago
      Yeah but it is 2025 and adoption means using it
    - CamouflagedKiwi 2y ago
      Yes, but the Linux they were compiling on in the 90s was a lot smaller & simpler than the Linux they would compile now.
    - mananaysiempre 2y ago
      The U74-MC on that board’s JH7110 SoC is two 64-bit dual-issue cores at 1.5 GHz, so it’s fair to compare it with the four 64-bit dual-issue cores at 1.2 or 1.4 GHz on the RPi3’s Cortex-A53, or for that matter with something like a 1.0 to 1.4 GHz dual-socket Pentium III system from the early oughts (which would use the P6 32-bit dual-issue microarchitecture from the Pentium Pro).
    - 2y ago
rollcat 2y ago
I complained about hardware perf and viability in another thread. However, there are enough options for enthusiasts / early adopters, including budget HW. I don't think e.g. PINETAB-V[1] is a desirable/useful general purpose tablet, but it's there if you want to bite. If you're going after an SBC, STAR64[2] also looks OK. [1]: https://pine64.com/product/pinetab-v-10-1-8gb-128gb-risc-v-based-linux-tablet-with-detached-backlit-keyboard/ https://pine64.com/product/pinetab-v-10-1-8gb-128gb-risc-v-b... [2]: https://pine64.com/product/star64-model-a-8gb-single-board-computer/ https://pine64.com/product/star64-model-a-8gb-single-board-c... Just adjust your expectations. x86-64 is the architecture of yesterday, ARM64 is for today, RISC-V looks like the future.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  Saw this thread and thought back to that thread as I hadn't heard of Chimera Linux before you mentioned them. Glad to see that they're not dropping RISC-V support for the moment - not that I'm a RISC-V user yet, but I agree that it's the future.
- mrbluecoat 2y ago
  Before you get too excited.. > nowhere near my original idea of being similar to Cortex-A72; the cores are more comparable to Cortex-A55 in practical performance Once RISC-V has a performance/price ratio of an RK3588 or N100 we can start talking about the future
  - brucehoult 2y ago
    If it hadn't been for US sanctions preventing the SG2380 being sent to TSMC for manufacturing, we would have at least one RISC-V machine (Milk-V Oasis) competitive with RK3588 (but 16 A78-equivalent cores) right around now. Also A55 and A72 are quite comparable in practical performance -- on real-world things such as building software, not just micro-benchmarks that only use L1 cache. The Arm SBC market has generally moved away from A74 boards to A55 board with more cores, as they are more energy efficient and cheaper to make too.
claudex 2y ago
>It's not like we can go to Hetzner and rent a RISC-V server or go to AWS and provision a RISC-V VM. You can go to Scaleway and provision an RISC-V instance https://labs.scaleway.com/en/em-rv1/ https://labs.scaleway.com/en/em-rv1/
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
MSFT_Edging 2y ago
RISC-V is commonly used in FPGA softcores when avoiding the more expensive tooling. You can find ~$100 FPGA dev boards capable of running a RISC-V Linux softcore on them right now. While not traditional hardware, its very much available.

Svip 2y ago

Whilst not exactly easy to come across quite yet, there are some signs of growing public availability for RISC-V: https://frame.work/fr/en/products/deep-computing-risc-v-mainboard https://frame.work/fr/en/products/deep-computing-risc-v-main... https://store.deepcomputing.io/products/dc-roma-riscv-laptop-ii-with-octa-core-cpu https://store.deepcomputing.io/products/dc-roma-riscv-laptop...

Hazematman 2y ago
In the original post about dropping RISC-V support chimera Linux mentions that this existing hardware is too slow realistically use for build machines. They specifically mention the JH7110 which powers the framework board and the spacemit k1/m1 that powers the DC Roma laptop. So yeah there is hardware available but expect raspberry pi 3 or lower levels of performance.
- throawayonthe 2y ago
  [dead]
- Levitating 2y ago
  Milk-V Pioneer has been the go to build machine for RISC-V (which was used here) which is much faster than a Raspberry Pi 3 for obvious reasons. Felix Yan uses the same machine for building Archlinux on RISC-V.

pengaru 2y ago

[flagged]

Levitating 2y ago

> The public doesn't have access to RISC-V hardware and it won't have access anytime soon. I do! I have a Milk-V Meles and I had a Milk-V Oasis on pre-order before it's cancellation. Been considering buying the Milk-V Megrez.

zik 2y ago

> The public doesn't have access to RISC-V hardware and it won't have access anytime soon. There's plenty of RISC-V hardware around, and anyone can buy it. eg. [1] [1] https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/RISC-V_hardware_list https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/RISC-V_hardware_list

IshKebab 2y ago
He mean "desktop grade" hardware. Something that you might compile an entire distro on. Those are all SBCs, and slow ones at that. Nobody is compiling an entire Linux distro on something like a Raspberry Pi 3.
- kibwen 2y ago
  > Nobody is compiling an entire Linux distro on something like a Raspberry Pi 3. The RISC-V mainboard for the Framework is 4-core 1.5 GHz with 8 GB of RAM. That's leagues better than the hardware that people were compiling Linux on in the 90s and early 2000s.
  - szundi 2y ago
    Yeah but it is 2025 and adoption means using it
  - CamouflagedKiwi 2y ago
    Yes, but the Linux they were compiling on in the 90s was a lot smaller & simpler than the Linux they would compile now.
  - mananaysiempre 2y ago
    The U74-MC on that board’s JH7110 SoC is two 64-bit dual-issue cores at 1.5 GHz, so it’s fair to compare it with the four 64-bit dual-issue cores at 1.2 or 1.4 GHz on the RPi3’s Cortex-A53, or for that matter with something like a 1.0 to 1.4 GHz dual-socket Pentium III system from the early oughts (which would use the P6 32-bit dual-issue microarchitecture from the Pentium Pro).
  - 2y ago

rollcat 2y ago

I complained about hardware perf and viability in another thread. However, there are enough options for enthusiasts / early adopters, including budget HW. I don't think e.g. PINETAB-V[1] is a desirable/useful general purpose tablet, but it's there if you want to bite. If you're going after an SBC, STAR64[2] also looks OK. [1]: https://pine64.com/product/pinetab-v-10-1-8gb-128gb-risc-v-based-linux-tablet-with-detached-backlit-keyboard/ https://pine64.com/product/pinetab-v-10-1-8gb-128gb-risc-v-b... [2]: https://pine64.com/product/star64-model-a-8gb-single-board-computer/ https://pine64.com/product/star64-model-a-8gb-single-board-c... Just adjust your expectations. x86-64 is the architecture of yesterday, ARM64 is for today, RISC-V looks like the future.

ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
Saw this thread and thought back to that thread as I hadn't heard of Chimera Linux before you mentioned them. Glad to see that they're not dropping RISC-V support for the moment - not that I'm a RISC-V user yet, but I agree that it's the future.
mrbluecoat 2y ago
Before you get too excited.. > nowhere near my original idea of being similar to Cortex-A72; the cores are more comparable to Cortex-A55 in practical performance Once RISC-V has a performance/price ratio of an RK3588 or N100 we can start talking about the future
- brucehoult 2y ago
  If it hadn't been for US sanctions preventing the SG2380 being sent to TSMC for manufacturing, we would have at least one RISC-V machine (Milk-V Oasis) competitive with RK3588 (but 16 A78-equivalent cores) right around now. Also A55 and A72 are quite comparable in practical performance -- on real-world things such as building software, not just micro-benchmarks that only use L1 cache. The Arm SBC market has generally moved away from A74 boards to A55 board with more cores, as they are more energy efficient and cheaper to make too.

claudex 2y ago

>It's not like we can go to Hetzner and rent a RISC-V server or go to AWS and provision a RISC-V VM. You can go to Scaleway and provision an RISC-V instance https://labs.scaleway.com/en/em-rv1/ https://labs.scaleway.com/en/em-rv1/

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

MSFT_Edging 2y ago

RISC-V is commonly used in FPGA softcores when avoiding the more expensive tooling. You can find ~$100 FPGA dev boards capable of running a RISC-V Linux softcore on them right now. While not traditional hardware, its very much available.