> apt update fetches packages from Chinese server So is it not official Debian? If so, that’s concerning!
Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
11–20 of 158 posts
Re: Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
#12My question: is it bootable into Linux without the use of any binary blobs? That is, can it be booted essentially equivalent to a librebooted system?
It's very likely that there's a blob for the SDRAM controller. Something like this:
https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/blob/master/arch/riscv/dts/...
Re: Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
#13Does it use U-Boot or EFI?
Re: Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
#14I have one of these as well - the distro I installed has a broken Chrome that crashes shortly after startup, hopefully that's fixed now. The case is prototype-quality but fine (the fact that it's metal helps a lot), the screen is nice, the keyboard is even more awkward than it needs to be for the size. I've been a bit disappointed by the performance in my tests (compiling various projects of mine with GCC), it seems…
>it seems closer to a Raspberry Pi 3 than a 4 or 5.
SOC is fabbed on a 12nm process and the CPU is under clocked from 2Ghz to 1.5 GHz. Probably the CPU is not intended for laptops and the manufacturer just got a generic board, slapped another 2 boards on top for I/O and built a laptop.
Re: Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
#15Does it use U-Boot or EFI?
In kernel config I see:
CONFIG_EFI_STUB=y
CONFIG_EFI=y
If that's what identifies it
Re: Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
#16This is TH1520, same SoC as the Lichee Pi 4A.
A chip that's oddly faster than JH7110 (VisionFive2, Milk-V Mars) in microbenchmarks, but slower in practice (e.g. gcc). Presumably due to smaller cache.
It is also less power efficient, and lacks the upstream support JH7110 enjoys[0]. I would look at Pinetab-V, a tablet-laptop based on that SoC, today.
Better yet, wait for Milk-V Oasis[1] tba this June, as well as other boards based on SG2380, the first announced RISC-V SoC with serious performance: 16x SiFive P670 and 8x X280, all RVA22 compliant, plus vector 1.0 (standard) extension.
0. https://rvspace.org/en/project/JH7110_Upstream_Plan
1. https://community.milkv.io/t/introducing-the-milk-v-oasis-wi...
Re: Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
#17I have one of these as well - the distro I installed has a broken Chrome that crashes shortly after startup, hopefully that's fixed now. The case is prototype-quality but fine (the fact that it's metal helps a lot), the screen is nice, the keyboard is even more awkward than it needs to be for the size. I've been a bit disappointed by the performance in my tests (compiling various projects of mine with GCC), it seems…
My tests show it's slightly slower than Pi 4 and significantly faster than Pi 3 on CPU performance.
1T Coremark: Pi 3: 3504 Lichee: 6900 Pi 4: 7938
Re: Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
#18This is TH1520, same SoC as the Lichee Pi 4A. A chip that's oddly faster than JH7110 (VisionFive2, Milk-V Mars) in microbenchmarks, but slower in practice (e.g. gcc). Presumably due to smaller cache. It is also less power efficient, and lacks the upstream support JH7110 enjoys[0]. I would look at Pinetab-V, a tablet-laptop based on that SoC, today. Better yet, wait for Milk-V Oasis[1] tba this June, as well as other…
Damn, best products are always in the future :-)
Oasis looks very capable and juicy, looking forward to get my hands on it.
Re: Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
#19I have one of these as well - the distro I installed has a broken Chrome that crashes shortly after startup, hopefully that's fixed now. The case is prototype-quality but fine (the fact that it's metal helps a lot), the screen is nice, the keyboard is even more awkward than it needs to be for the size. I've been a bit disappointed by the performance in my tests (compiling various projects of mine with GCC), it seems…
I think it's mostly a case of software not being optimized for RISC-V. The sipeed website indicates that it's much faster if the benchmarks are built with optimized toolchains. I imagine it has x64 or arm7 emulator for most builds.
Completely false. This is compared to native versions on all platforms.
Supposedly TH1520 gets a small uplift when compiled for its proprietary extensions, but I haven't seen a compiler using this and it would have no bearing on application from a standard distribution.
I have both 7110 and TH1520, but I'm looking forward to SiFive P670 powered SG2380 which promises to be an exciting chip.
Re: Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
#20My question: is it bootable into Linux without the use of any binary blobs? That is, can it be booted essentially equivalent to a librebooted system?
It's very likely that there's a blob for the SDRAM controller. Something like this: https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/blob/master/arch/riscv/dts/...
Also the GPU doesn't have a free driver [currently]