> Storage – TBD, likely MicroSD card
Meh. I wish they would realize that SD cards are not made to be a system disk. I need SATA or NVME ports and lots of them so I can build my own NAS!
PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an open-source alternative to Raspberry Pi board
111–120 of 159 posts
Re: PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an open-source alternative to Raspberry Pi board
#112> Storage – TBD, likely MicroSD card Meh. I wish they would realize that SD cards are not made to be a system disk. I need SATA or NVME ports and lots of them so I can build my own NAS!
So much this. Don't make this another unreliable toy wasting space in somebodys drawer.
Re: PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an open-source alternative to Raspberry Pi board
#113> Storage – TBD, likely MicroSD card Meh. I wish they would realize that SD cards are not made to be a system disk. I need SATA or NVME ports and lots of them so I can build my own NAS!
Yeah, I don't have a lot of confidence in using MicroSD or USB flash for the software and OS in anything other than a hobby toy. I'd prefer that storage to be SSD or eMMC.
Separate from what the software&OS drive is, for a small NAS, 2 SATA ports for data storage (RAID mirrored) would be nice, but doesn't have to be in the general-purpose hobby $35 (or whatever) size board. For larger NAS needing more SATA ports, I definitely wouldn't expect or want that in the $35 board, but seems like there's probably a market for a board like that.
Re: PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an open-source alternative to Raspberry Pi board
#114Promising hardware, though this isn't looking like comparable hardware even to the Raspberry Pi Zero. Only has a quad-core 64-bit RISC-V (RV64GC) processor at 500+ MHz. RAM size not specified. If it was priced in the $5-15 range it would be more or less practical, but higher than that I'd be buying it solely for the architecture novelty.
Original iPhone managed 60fps with an even slower processor (412MHz - https://everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/specs/apple-iphone...). I know it only had 320x480 resolution, but if you consider that the CPU's job is to keep the GPU busy then I see no reason that efficient software could get a smooth UI out of this processor paired to a 60fps-capable GPU. Having said that, 'efficient software' is like hens teeth nowadays :)
Re: PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an open-source alternative to Raspberry Pi board
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
rpi is one of the most closed SBCs there is. Even basic materials necessary to write OSes and drivers for the device, namely datasheets and register manuals for the SoC have never been published. Unlike every other SBC I'm aware of they don't even publish full schematics. The "schematics" on their website are abridged (try and find the USB ports on them). Arguments that Broadcom is forcing their hand on this simply d…
> Arguments that Broadcom is forcing their hand on this simply don't add up. I have worked with much more mundane integrated circuits where the manufacturer required you to sign an NDA before getting any kind of design support from them. One of the terms of the NDA was not publishing the schematic of the device using their product. I don't see why Broadcom wouldn't do something similar for their SoCs.
A few things.
Broadcom is notorious for demanding NDAs for their datasheets, completely pointlessly. I've also heard of companies demanding their parts be redacted on schematics if published, even more ridiculously, though as far as I know Broadcom isn't one of them (I've seen public schematics with Broadcom parts).
Still, from what I've heard of Broadcom specifically, they're pathologically secretive with their documentation unless some star customer dangles enough money in front of them. rpi.org certainly fits that description. So I don't really buy this excuse for rpi here.
In reality, I suspect it's more the fact that rpi.org was started by ex-Broadcom engineers and they brought their culture of secrecy with them.
Re: PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an open-source alternative to Raspberry Pi board
#116The chip industry will do like the telecom industry.
1st few players grow it important 2nd it becames a big monopoly, we all depend on 3rd other players need 10 years to build competition ( needed time to build cable/towers) ( needed time to develop processors ) 4th you have a bunch of players, all with FIX COSTS and with a 1$ variable cost for new customers, the competition squeez the margins to arround Zero. 5th you still have to keep up with the improvements ( 5G?? / 7nm??, 6nm?? ), so just to keep going investments are needed, and so profits disappear in the industry
airlines, Telecom, .... next chipmakers
Re: PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an open-source alternative to Raspberry Pi board
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe it's because the Broadcom System-on-a-Chip (SOC) that the Raspberry Pi uses has one or more binary BLOBS that are required to access features on the SOC. RISC-V is an open standard; chips made based on this standard are open source.
It is possible for open source replacements for those blobs to be written, but I have not heard of any serious effort in that respect.
https://github.com/librerpi/rpi-open-firmware is a pretty serious attempt at the bootloader (incl. VC4 side). As in they can boot an OS, with some limitations but still.
Re: PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an open-source alternative to Raspberry Pi board
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Broadcom SoC is probably protected by a bunch of patents and/or trade secrets, which makes it impractical to open source. For example the whole boot process is a black box, which is why you have to use Raspbian and not regular Debian.
That's not really true anymore. Device Tree and other things help with this, although you do still require certain BLOB's to access the GPU and other features.
You only need boot blobs. Accessing the GPU, no. VC4 driver for the Pi3 and older is there, and V3D/VC5 for Pi4 is the only driver, AFAIK there is no proprietary driver for the Pi 4 GPU at all, only the open one.
Re: PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an open-source alternative to Raspberry Pi board
#119Why is RISC-V even so hyped up/successful? Other open ISAs precede it, and AFAIK the code density that RISC-V allows is disappointing considering the designers had an opportunity to start from scratch.
>Other open ISAs precede it Do you have any in mind? From what I can tell even POWER is not as open as RISC-V. They only show schematics to their partners, not the public at large. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPOWER_Foundation#Openness
This is about the ISA, and POWER ISA has indeed been made royalty-free recently. Schematics are about a particular microarchitecture, particular hardware implementation.
Re: PicoRio Linux RISC-V SBC is an open-source alternative to Raspberry Pi board
#120Why is RISC-V even so hyped up/successful? Other open ISAs precede it, and AFAIK the code density that RISC-V allows is disappointing considering the designers had an opportunity to start from scratch.
One concrete advantage RISCV has is its variable-length SIMD instruction set. The assembly instructions used for SIMD in RISCV can all operate on data sizes that are various powers of 2. All using the same instructions. You could even call it “SIMD with dynamically-sized data”. Right now, x86 needs one set of instructions for each SIMD data size. That’s why we have SSE, AVX, AVX512, etc. This introduces complexity fo…
Arm SVE is also variable data size, and it's already in production on Fujitsu's massive HPC clusters :P