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Debian riscv64

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Re: Debian riscv64

#81

Post by xyproto »

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.

Usually when people feel like this, it is because the text has been generated by a LLM.

Re: Debian riscv64

#82

Post by panick21_ »

pjmlp wrote: post #77
panick21_ wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. PowerPC was never free. I think you mean OpenPOWER. Again that was just marketing, it wasn't free in anyway. Only the pressure of RISC-V lead to POWER and MIPS becoming more free over time. And even if OpenSPARC had a open spec, but was only for 32bit. The 64 bit version would never become a standard. You need more then air dropping a spec. You need people to continue to push it forward and evolve it. Yo…

Until we get a RISC V computer on Media Markt being sold to average joe/jane, FOSS everything, it is going to be hardly any different.

That's just wrong and a simply depressive outlook for life. Saying things are only valuable if its for literally everybody just the wrong outlook.

Having the ability to make open end to end things is valuable even if its not in every product. Linux shows up in lots of places where people are not aware and that is a good thing. The same thing will happen with RISC-V.

And for people who like open, there will be product for those people. There are companies working on open board devices, laptops, boards and so on. And in the future maybe those could be open chip. The costumers of those products will not care if the PC at Media Market is a propriety computer with Windows on it.

Your attitude would basically be that 'its hardly different' when OpenSource started to grow. But it was and is actually different for a lot of people and for the industry.

Re: Debian riscv64

#83

Post by irusensei »

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?

Yes there are some SBCs around if you want to experiment. Pine has one line of boards now.

I'm hoping for desktop grade stuff instead. I don't mind if the CPU is soldered but it would be nice to have memory and pci-e expansion slots. Something to match the POWER Raptor machines as open source but not as expensive.

Re: Debian riscv64

#84

Post by pjmlp »

panick21_ wrote: post #82
pjmlp wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until we get a RISC V computer on Media Markt being sold to average joe/jane, FOSS everything, it is going to be hardly any different.

That's just wrong and a simply depressive outlook for life. Saying things are only valuable if its for literally everybody just the wrong outlook. Having the ability to make open end to end things is valuable even if its not in every product. Linux shows up in lots of places where people are not aware and that is a good thing. The same thing will happen with RISC-V. And for people who like open, there will be product…

Those people don't care one bit about how open their blue ray happens to be, even though Sony has based it on Linux and hardly contributed the changes to upstream, as means to reduce costs.

Re: Debian riscv64

#85

Post by alexeldeib »

xyproto wrote: post #81
ur-whale wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Usually when people feel like this, it is because the text has been generated by a LLM.

What makes you think it’s an LLM? It made fine sense to me, it’s just an odd style

Re: Debian riscv64

#86

Post by giantrobot »

ilyt wrote: post #62
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…

Only benefit is companies not having to pay ARM. The architecture NEVER WAS A PROBLEM for open, it was always the binary blobs required to run IP blocks put on the die with the cores that stopped people from using them. ISA is the easy part. Even if you need to RE it, you only need to do it once. Now hopefully with RISC V companies will be even more inclined to just upstream their drivers from the start (and not do t…

> it was always the binary blobs required to run IP blocks put on the die with the cores that stopped people from using them

That's not going to change with RISC-V. If you've got silicon that has to conform with FCC regulations it's going to have non-modifiable firmware. No matter how open the rest of the system is, your WiFi and Bluetooth (and any other radios) will have closed firmware.

Re: Debian riscv64

#87

Post by JNRowe »

mise_en_place wrote: post #72

This is great news. Is there a special BSP that needs to be flashed first for risc-v boards? Or will it work out of the box with OpenSBI?

Like always, it depends. The hardware section on the wiki lists some device specifics¹, and if you follow the OnDebian² links there are a couple that look like they might work-ish out of the box. Presumably -- or perhaps hopefully -- things will improve quicker with mainline Debian as an option and hardware becoming more available.

In the context of Debian, let us hope people aren't flashing a BSP³ in the hope of improved board support ;)

¹ https://wiki.debian.org/RISC-V#Hardware

² https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn

³ https://wiki.debian.org/BSP

Re: Debian riscv64

#88

Post by panick21_ »

pjmlp wrote: post #84
panick21_ wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just wrong and a simply depressive outlook for life. Saying things are only valuable if its for literally everybody just the wrong outlook. Having the ability to make open end to end things is valuable even if its not in every product. Linux shows up in lots of places where people are not aware and that is a good thing. The same thing will happen with RISC-V. And for people who like open, there will be product…

Those people don't care one bit about how open their blue ray happens to be, even though Sony has based it on Linux and hardly contributed the changes to upstream, as means to reduce costs.

Again, I don't care what most people believe. Not sure why that matters so much to you. That simply doesn't mean nothing has changed.

Re: Debian riscv64

#89

Post by panick21_ »

pjmlp wrote: post #76
Pet_Ant wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

May be, it is still being sold, and doesn't have anything to do with the point of being there first.

Again, the Sparc 64Bit that is used today is not open. So not sure why you bring it up.

Re: Debian riscv64

#90

Post by worksonmine »

pjmlp wrote: post #77
panick21_ wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. PowerPC was never free. I think you mean OpenPOWER. Again that was just marketing, it wasn't free in anyway. Only the pressure of RISC-V lead to POWER and MIPS becoming more free over time. And even if OpenSPARC had a open spec, but was only for 32bit. The 64 bit version would never become a standard. You need more then air dropping a spec. You need people to continue to push it forward and evolve it. Yo…

Until we get a RISC V computer on Media Markt being sold to average joe/jane, FOSS everything, it is going to be hardly any different.

Average Joe and Jane still aren't buying Raspberry Pis, that doesn't mean the Pi didn't change hobby and DIY computing for the enthusiasts. Is your definition of success complete adoption? To me a 100% open phone that handles calls and data would be a huge win. I don't even need a camera, I don't use it. I don't care what the masses do, they will follow when the day comes just like they always do the mindless zombies that they are.

Getting Debian officially supported is one of the necessary steps towards that goal.

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