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Debian riscv64

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Re: Debian riscv64

#51

Post by totetsu »

lmm wrote: post #21
sohrob wrote: post #16

When Debian is ported to a new architecture does that mean something special needs to happen to all of the packages in the repository for them to work on that new architecture?

Well-written applications will just work. Badly-written applications may require patches or be impractical to build at all, and some system software may not make sense on the architecture at all. There's a whole lot of build infrastructure for Debian; by default the package maintainer doesn't need to do anything specific, building for all architectures will happen by default.

What kind of assumptions would badly-written applications make to make themselves impractical to cross-build?

Re: Debian riscv64

#52

Post by superdug »

I wanted to check first, and I wasn't saddened when I found netbsd was also available for riscv64. That being said, having a full debian suite to nicely land on is what will gain it adoption. It's a chicken and egg problem where one side is vigorously designing and publishing a hardware spec in search of an operating system and at the same time an entire eco-system of open source development is in search of open hardware to run on.

Fully open systems are an entirely ideological win at this point with a now sub-$50 entry point setups available today. Please also do not get me wrong, working around copy protection and binary blobs serve as amazing learning tools for tinkerers, but not for true beginners.

Some people learn from hands on breaking it and putting it back together, but others learn by knowing that there is a fully documented dearth of information within a mere quandary of any part of the system.

These two worlds are not antagonistic, but in fact entirely complementary to each other. To fully understand and master a system, you have to break it and know how to fix it. While on the same hand knowing how to see what part broke and see an exact way to fix it in the completely free entirety of information available until time itself forgets it, gives you the confidence that there isn't anything you don't know or knowing instantly where to find it if you don't.

That free and open standard will lend itself to future chip designs, broader software options for those designs, and start to make computers adopt there new role as segregated fully autonomous systems loosely networked together into the same status that all 99th percentile that all previous technology has adopted throughout history.

The nerds won, we made computers into a skilled labor.

You're welcome.

Re: Debian riscv64

#53

Post by Tepix »

djha-skin wrote: post #11

Any promising riscv64 computers on the market I should know about? Raspberry pi level or otherwise? What computers could I use this distro on?

I'm wondering about this as well. In particular, are there any with RAM slots instead of soldered RAM?

Re: Debian riscv64

#54

Post by ur-whale »

superdug wrote: post #52

I wanted to check first, and I wasn't saddened when I found netbsd was also available for riscv64. That being said, having a full debian suite to nicely land on is what will gain it adoption. It's a chicken and egg problem where one side is vigorously designing and publishing a hardware spec in search of an operating system and at the same time an entire eco-system of open source development is in search of open hard…

No snarkiness intended, but I just read your post for the 3rd time and although I understand each sentence individually, I'm still not sure what point you're trying to make.

Re: Debian riscv64

#55

Post by superdug »

ur-whale wrote: post #54
superdug wrote: post #52

I wanted to check first, and I wasn't saddened when I found netbsd was also available for riscv64. That being said, having a full debian suite to nicely land on is what will gain it adoption. It's a chicken and egg problem where one side is vigorously designing and publishing a hardware spec in search of an operating system and at the same time an entire eco-system of open source development is in search of open hard…

No snarkiness intended, but I just read your post for the 3rd time and although I understand each sentence individually, I'm still not sure what point you're trying to make.

It's an amazing accomplishment that we'll see the benefits of for centuries. The culmination of a free operating system on free hardware that is.

Re: Debian riscv64

#56

Post by Tepix »

ac29 wrote: post #26
MobiusHorizons wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything based on the rk3588 like the radxa rock 5b. Just be careful to note the distinction between the rk3588 variants, as some have pcie 3 and some only have pcie2.

RK3588 is an ARM chip

Right. If you want Rockchip, look for the RK628E (RISC-V), the RV1129 or the RV1126 (both ARM and RISC-V)

Re: Debian riscv64

#57

Post by camel-cdr »

djha-skin wrote: post #11

Any promising riscv64 computers on the market I should know about? Raspberry pi level or otherwise? What computers could I use this distro on?

https://milkv.io/pioneer seems to be the most powerful rn, but I'd only recommend it for developers who are working on getting things like gpu drivers ported.

For most development smaller SBCs are enough, and I'd recommend waiting for RVA22/23 profile supporting hardware before spending a lot of money, because most current chips use the non standard vector isa and don't support all profile extensions, because they where created before everything was ratified.

Here is a list of risc-v SBCs: http://krimsky.net/articles/riscvsbc.html

Re: Debian riscv64

#58

Post by Tepix »

KingLancelot wrote: post #35
snvzz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proprietary ISA ship has long sailed[0]. RISC-V is inevitable[1]. 0. https://riscv.org/members/ 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktjSvlelKPk

Microsoft, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA. Only one I didn’t see was Apple, hell even Raspberry Pi is there.

Apple is also interested, they were hiring a RISC-V engineer back in 2021 already.

Re: Debian riscv64

#59

Post by ur-whale »

djha-skin wrote: post #11

Any promising riscv64 computers on the market I should know about? Raspberry pi level or otherwise? What computers could I use this distro on?

I have a starfive visionfive V2 [1] board at home to play with riscv. Can be had fairly quickly from Aliexpress for ~ 100 bucks.

Very similar in nature to a raspi, but still a bit rough around the edges:

   - getting debian up an running is not yet straightforward

   - this is not exactly a speed demon (it's actually dog slow compared to an rpi 4)

   - some feature aren't in the kernel yet (eg some USB devices don't work)

   - support for HDMI is still clunky

   - [EDIT]: one very nice thing, it has an NVME port and you can choose (via dip switches) to boot from either of NVME, Flash, EMMC or UART (see page 46 of [2])
Mine boots from NVME and it's really sweet, it's one major mission feature for the rpi family.

BUT: it's a very usable computer, and great if you want to play with RISCV assembly on actual metal (outside of a qemu box, that is).

[1] https://www.starfivetech.com/en/site/boards

[2] https://doc-en.rvspace.org/VisionFive2/PDF/VisionFive2_QSG.p...

Re: Debian riscv64

#60

Post by Pet_Ant »

pjmlp wrote: post #50
IshKebab wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SPARC is dead and Power was only recently opened (probably in response to RISC-V). Neither of them originated from a neutral source.

OpenPOWER Foundation exists since 2013. SPARC is quite alive for Solaris customers, and there are still plenty of them. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that they were there first. Anyone that thinks basic ISA being open source, will prevent extensions, proprietary boards or boot firmware are fooling themselves. Sure, it may do for a couple of maker community projects, Arduino style, and that is about it.

> SPARC is quite alive for Solaris customers

Fujitsu has announced plans to transition away from SPARC by 2030. Oracle has laid off their staff, after the M8 in 2017. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPARC ) If SPARC isn’t dead, then it’s in palliative care, and not far behind Itanium.

Shame because SPARC T series was interesting and I wonder what it would look like today at modern geometries and using chiplets.

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