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BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

beaglev.seeed.cc

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Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#61

Post by seabird »

mrweasel wrote: post #53

Is there something inherently complicated in adding a SATA/M.2 port to board like this? The RaspberryPi is also "disk-less", which to me is one of the major limitations. It's a super interesting little board, and I love that it's a RISC-V, that could really help getting the CPU in the hands of people. I just don't know enough about these things to understand why there are no storage connectors (other than an SD card…

You would have to integrate a storage controller into your design and verify that it works. It's not insurmountable, but it's engineering time that has to go toward something that a lot of people aren't ever going to use, along with an increase in BOM cost.

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#62

Post by pabs3 »

archanox wrote: post #39
scoopr wrote: post #28

Does it have an GPU? I can't quite decipher the specs. Random googling suggests that SiFive have partnered with PowerVR for GPU, which might even enable vulkan support, but I suppose this SoC is not one of those?

As per the Ars link; > The initial pilot run of BeagleV will use the Vision DSP hardware as a graphics processor, allowing a full graphical desktop environment under Fedora. Following hardware runs will include an unspecified model of Imagine GPU as well.

Also, ImgTec are planning on writing and upstreaming open drivers for Linux and mesa for another RISC-V based board, so probably those drivers will work here too.

https://riscv.org/blog/2020/11/picorio-the-raspberry-pi-like...

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#63

Post by lsb »

mrweasel wrote: post #53

Is there something inherently complicated in adding a SATA/M.2 port to board like this? The RaspberryPi is also "disk-less", which to me is one of the major limitations. It's a super interesting little board, and I love that it's a RISC-V, that could really help getting the CPU in the hands of people. I just don't know enough about these things to understand why there are no storage connectors (other than an SD card…

You can get an SD card with 0.5TB capacity on it for USD$30, what storage needs do you foresee? Also these tend to be used where weight is an issue, so, why do you want to lug around a huge disk?

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#64

Post by my123 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #35
WatchDog wrote: post #12

Is the SiFive U74 open source? I know the RISC-V ISA is, but I thought the SiFive designs were proprietary.

Looks like their Hard IP is proprietary but based on open high-level designs such as Rocket and BOOM. The peripherals situation is mixed, but they've stated in the past that they're quite OK with using open designs whenever feasible.

The high-level design is proprietary too.

As I said elsewhere, SiFive CPUs are just as closed as Arm ones, you just pay a royalty to SiFive instead of Arm.

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#65

Post by Pet_Ant »

rwmj wrote: post #33
fctorial wrote: post #7

Where's the source code?

I don't think it's open source. RISC-V is an open ISA, but implementations are not required to be open source (although there are many implementations which are).

I like to think of it as an open-standard like where anyone can download the TCK versus something where you need to pay for the SPECs from ISO (for example Prolog is https://www.iso.org/standard/21413.html which is 185€/$250 USD).

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#66

Post by chem83 »

joana035 wrote: post #34
stragies wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The processor maybe, but what about the e.g. USB3 controller, WIFI, etc, that can also freely snoop around your memory. Are there even open USB3 implementations?

> that can also freely snoop around your memory. Can them? Even with IOMMU? EDIT: I don't think so.

Is there an IOMMU specification standardized on RISC-V yet? I think it's just some early proposals.

Or proprietary designs that achieve similar functionality such as Hex Five and WorldGuard.

Am I right?

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#67

Post by sradman »

basher wrote: post #13

Arstechnica coverage: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/01/seeed-and-beagleboar...

> Although the first hardware run will be entirely $140 / 8GiB systems, lower-cost variants with less RAM are expected in following releases.

> The initial pilot run of BeagleV will use the Vision DSP hardware as a graphics processor, allowing a full graphical desktop environment under Fedora. Following hardware runs will include an unspecified model of Imagine GPU as well.

Sounds like a direct competitor to the Raspberry Pi. I don't know if the Imagine GPU planned for the next iteration is playing catch-up or leapfrog. The Arstechnica article links to SiFive creates global network of RISC-V startups [1] which I think demonstrates that SiFive is strategically leveraging or responding to the geopolitics surrounding Chinese technology.

[1] https://www.eenewsanalog.com/news/sifive-creates-global-netw...

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#68

Post by MisterTea »

lsb wrote: post #63
mrweasel wrote: post #53

Is there something inherently complicated in adding a SATA/M.2 port to board like this? The RaspberryPi is also "disk-less", which to me is one of the major limitations. It's a super interesting little board, and I love that it's a RISC-V, that could really help getting the CPU in the hands of people. I just don't know enough about these things to understand why there are no storage connectors (other than an SD card…

You can get an SD card with 0.5TB capacity on it for USD$30, what storage needs do you foresee? Also these tend to be used where weight is an issue, so, why do you want to lug around a huge disk?

SD cards are too slow to be of practical use as a general purpose disk. They're fine when you have a very predictable workload that does not involve a lot of disk IO.

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#69

Post by cjbconnor »

lsb wrote: post #63
mrweasel wrote: post #53

Is there something inherently complicated in adding a SATA/M.2 port to board like this? The RaspberryPi is also "disk-less", which to me is one of the major limitations. It's a super interesting little board, and I love that it's a RISC-V, that could really help getting the CPU in the hands of people. I just don't know enough about these things to understand why there are no storage connectors (other than an SD card…

You can get an SD card with 0.5TB capacity on it for USD$30, what storage needs do you foresee? Also these tend to be used where weight is an issue, so, why do you want to lug around a huge disk?

Nearly all SD cards that I've used in Pis and other SBCs have died unpredictably in the past, so I've pretty much given up on using them

Re: BeagleV – An affordable RISC-V computer designed to run Linux

#70

Post by btreecat »

lsb wrote: post #63
mrweasel wrote: post #53

Is there something inherently complicated in adding a SATA/M.2 port to board like this? The RaspberryPi is also "disk-less", which to me is one of the major limitations. It's a super interesting little board, and I love that it's a RISC-V, that could really help getting the CPU in the hands of people. I just don't know enough about these things to understand why there are no storage connectors (other than an SD card…

You can get an SD card with 0.5TB capacity on it for USD$30, what storage needs do you foresee? Also these tend to be used where weight is an issue, so, why do you want to lug around a huge disk?

How about _reliable_ storage needs?
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