Don't suppose there's actually documentation for the CPU anywhere?
(I mean more than a tiny "datasheet" with a very high level overview and/or a pile of random Linux/uboot patches)
Not bad at all, but the OpenWRT image still didn’t have Wi-Fi support a week or so ago, so I don’t know how good software support is going to be in the long run.
Yes, lots of Intel and AMD based SBCs have SO-DIMM slots, but you'll have to accept the 3.5" format.
Regarding RISC-V SBCs, there was serious consideration to release the Milk-V Oasis with SG2380 and LPCAMM2. But this didn't work out as the SG2380 was held up by geopolitical issues.
Not really. Most in the ARM space, at least, are soldered on or you need to switch out the entire compute module. Intel ones (not mini-PCs, but industrial gear and things like the LattePanda) also tend to have soldered RAM.
RISC-V going forward, one of the only beacons of hope in the silicon world.
I need one of such devices for my self-hosted services. And it will be time to port from C to assembly, really, because we have finally a CPU ISA which is 'sweet spot' balanced, standard, global, pushed forward with significant resources and without IP locks anywhere. No more developer/vendor lock-in via "the only compiler able to generate correct machine code", extremely hard to do planned obsolescence, etc, we need mainstream adoption NOW :)
The main blocker: how do I buy such device with a noscript/basic (x)html browser? And no way I use a credit card on a web site: would require well identified bank swift account, or wallet codes bought from local and physical currency terminals. I don't know of any local retailers I can buy such device from. Yep, the "web geniuses" at amazon (which supports wallet code) broke noscript/basic (x)html support a few years ago.
There's a RV64 port of Debian and the RV2 and R2S are on the list of compatible hardware. No guarantee it'll be easy getting it loaded, it was like pulling teeth to get it on the SiFive U74 board, but that was 7 years ago, so it's GOT to be better by now.
Part of the problem is that every ASIC manufacturer (and indeed each fabrication process) has a different toolchain with a different set of primitives for circuit design. Yosys and other open tooling for FPGAs has helped a great deal in lowering the barrier to chip design and by association reuse of circuits. But every ASIC, at the moment, is tied to some vendor's PDK. Here's the one Google open sourced for Cypress Semi's SKY130 process node: https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk
It is at least theoretically possible to build a headless "GPU" from RISC-V processors that have the vector extension (RVV). RVV had been designed to be able to run programs compiled for the SIMT execution model that most GPUs use.
This Orange Pi RV2 has a small vector unit in each core, and could be used for at least prototyping the software until more powerful chips are available.
BTW. There have also been a couple hardware startups that have been working on commercial GPUs based on RISC-V's vector extension, with their own GPU-specific instruction set extensions for texture lookup and the like.
Hardware patents are orthogonal to open source software. If a patent covers the hardware then someone who wants to manufacture the hardware needs to license the patent, but you were never going to get free-as-in-beer hardware anyway, and a hardware patent is independent of whether the hardware is fully documented or has firmware with published source code and a license that allows users to make changes to it.
Not bad at all, but the OpenWRT image still didn’t have Wi-Fi support a week or so ago, so I don’t know how good software support is going to be in the long run.
Regarding RISC-V SBCs, there was serious consideration to release the Milk-V Oasis with SG2380 and LPCAMM2. But this didn't work out as the SG2380 was held up by geopolitical issues.
I need one of such devices for my self-hosted services. And it will be time to port from C to assembly, really, because we have finally a CPU ISA which is 'sweet spot' balanced, standard, global, pushed forward with significant resources and without IP locks anywhere. No more developer/vendor lock-in via "the only compiler able to generate correct machine code", extremely hard to do planned obsolescence, etc, we need mainstream adoption NOW :)
The main blocker: how do I buy such device with a noscript/basic (x)html browser? And no way I use a credit card on a web site: would require well identified bank swift account, or wallet codes bought from local and physical currency terminals. I don't know of any local retailers I can buy such device from. Yep, the "web geniuses" at amazon (which supports wallet code) broke noscript/basic (x)html support a few years ago.
Whats the go there? Is there no distro like Raspbian supporting it?
They provide official OS images at release but don't care much afterwards.
And there have been some others as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_graphics_...
Recently https://www.furygpu.com/
Part of the problem is that every ASIC manufacturer (and indeed each fabrication process) has a different toolchain with a different set of primitives for circuit design. Yosys and other open tooling for FPGAs has helped a great deal in lowering the barrier to chip design and by association reuse of circuits. But every ASIC, at the moment, is tied to some vendor's PDK. Here's the one Google open sourced for Cypress Semi's SKY130 process node: https://github.com/google/skywater-pdk
This Orange Pi RV2 has a small vector unit in each core, and could be used for at least prototyping the software until more powerful chips are available.
BTW. There have also been a couple hardware startups that have been working on commercial GPUs based on RISC-V's vector extension, with their own GPU-specific instruction set extensions for texture lookup and the like.