Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues(3.14.by)
3.14.by
Lichee Console 4A – RISC-V mini laptop: Review, benchmarks and early issues
https://3.14.by/en/read/RISC-V-Sipeed-Lichee-Console-4A-Alibaba-T-Head-TH1520-review
157 comments
I did a comparison of a few RISC-V single board computers and the Lichee Pi 4A is definitely very slow on real world tasks, even though in theory it ought to be the fastest. I never got to the bottom of exactly why - it might be software issues or non-upstream drivers. At the moment I'd recommend the VF2 for general use.
https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2023/07/25/heads-up-lichee-pi-4a-...
https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2023/07/25/heads-up-lichee-pi-4a-...
Interesting, I had the opposite experience: the GUI was very slow and nearly unusable on most RISC-V boards that I have, except the LicheePi4a. But that is probably just due to the GPU (which unfortunately doesn't have open source drivers yet?), and not the CPU, and they're all running different kernels and distros.
When I have some time I'll need to compare again with the latest distro available for each, and also a fully open source one.
re: GPU, mesa3d side (vulkan driver) is merged upstream. OpenGL/CL/GLES are via Zink.
powervr is working into getting the drm side merged to the kernel, too.
powervr is working into getting the drm side merged to the kernel, too.
You have to keep in mind that since RISC-V is an ISA standard, C[gcc] coded kernels are here for legacy support purpose. The C[gcc] language is not appropriate anymore, assembly coded is the right(tm) way.
What is this supposed to mean? You think someone is going to rewrite linux in assembly language?
Something's definitely "up with" the RISC-V GCC port; in principle maybe there are just some passes or backend options that need to be flipped on in some way?
https://godbolt.org/z/cvc6j1sM6
https://godbolt.org/z/cvc6j1sM6
Looks like clang does the optimization for -mno-strict-align, but gcc doesn't seem to support that fully yet: https://godbolt.org/z/xn8erKMTe
Edit: Apparently gcc assumes by default, that unaligned loads aren't supported, but with -mtune=size it somehow enables it: https://godbolt.org/z/d9P19aMnn
some discussion around that: https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?format=multiple&id...
Edit: Apparently gcc assumes by default, that unaligned loads aren't supported, but with -mtune=size it somehow enables it: https://godbolt.org/z/d9P19aMnn
some discussion around that: https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?format=multiple&id...
The SG2380 is a bit weird though. Four of the P670 cores are clocked lower than the others.
The X280 cores are not RVA22 compliant. They are only RV64GCV, so they can't run the same code as the P670 cores. SophGo's datasheet lists these cores under "AI accelerator", paired with a "TPU", so they were never intended to run general purpose code.
The X280 cores are not RVA22 compliant. They are only RV64GCV, so they can't run the same code as the P670 cores. SophGo's datasheet lists these cores under "AI accelerator", paired with a "TPU", so they were never intended to run general purpose code.
X280s where design for AI applications, and have an interface for custom vendor extension. If I understood it correctly SophGo plans to add a matmul extension to it.
You wouldn't be able to run P670s and X280s on and schedule applications between them anyways, because they have different vector lengths.
You wouldn't be able to run P670s and X280s on and schedule applications between them anyways, because they have different vector lengths.
>You wouldn't be able to run P670s and X280s on and schedule applications between them anyways, because they have different vector lengths.
Not trivial, but also not impossible.
e.g. I understand there's some bits to check whether vector has been used. It would also be abnormal for a process to be in wait (as opposite to ready) within a vector loop.
Having a chip like this one deployed will definitely enable experimentation and research on how to best deal with this situation.
Not trivial, but also not impossible.
e.g. I understand there's some bits to check whether vector has been used. It would also be abnormal for a process to be in wait (as opposite to ready) within a vector loop.
Having a chip like this one deployed will definitely enable experimentation and research on how to best deal with this situation.
Well, I don't like the SGxxxx SOC as they contain an ARM core (= royalties), I would prefer a CVxxxx SOC without an ARM core, and if they could get in the future displayport instead of hdmi and AV1 instead of h26[45] (hdmi and mpeg are not worldwide royalty free).
I am trying to buy some milk-v duo boards with the CV1800 SOC in EU (without a credit card to use online, and which I can contact with a self-hosted email), anyone can help?
EDIT: the next SGxxxx SOC is actually a full desktop SOC, not an "embedded" one (I was talking about the those). No ARM cores, but still a mpeg and hdmi block, and it seems the GPU hardware programing manual is not public.
I am trying to buy some milk-v duo boards with the CV1800 SOC in EU (without a credit card to use online, and which I can contact with a self-hosted email), anyone can help?
EDIT: the next SGxxxx SOC is actually a full desktop SOC, not an "embedded" one (I was talking about the those). No ARM cores, but still a mpeg and hdmi block, and it seems the GPU hardware programing manual is not public.
Damn, best products are always in the future :-)
Oasis looks very capable and juicy, looking forward to get my hands on it.
Same. This seems to be the SoC and board I have been waiting a long time for.
Do not forget to preorder, to get the unbelievably low price listed in their announcement.
It should be fun to play with it this summer, and further down the line it will become my home server, replacing an old atom board that's considerably weaker.
That's mostly enabled by the builtin I/O (pcie slots, sata ports...).
Do not forget to preorder, to get the unbelievably low price listed in their announcement.
It should be fun to play with it this summer, and further down the line it will become my home server, replacing an old atom board that's considerably weaker.
That's mostly enabled by the builtin I/O (pcie slots, sata ports...).
> Do not forget to preorder, to get the unbelievably low price listed in their announcement.
I don't know much about the RISC-V ecosystem at the moment, but what do you consider an "unbelievably low price"?
They SoC appears to be £5 to pre-order (EDIT: £5 is for a 20% off coupon), but the motherboard to use it on appears to be ~£1200. Is this considered a good deal for RISC-V right now?
I don't know much about the RISC-V ecosystem at the moment, but what do you consider an "unbelievably low price"?
They SoC appears to be £5 to pre-order (EDIT: £5 is for a 20% off coupon), but the motherboard to use it on appears to be ~£1200. Is this considered a good deal for RISC-V right now?
> but the motherboard to use it on appears to be ~£1200
Not sure what you're looking at as you didn't give a link, but perhaps you're confusing Pioneer and Oasis?
The 64 core Pioneer prebuilt with case, power supply, SSD, video card, 128 GB RAM for $2500 is quite reasonably priced against commercially built 16 core x86 machines, if your workload can keep 64 cores busy. Each core is around 1/4 the speed of current x86, but there are four times as many.
Don't forget 64 core x86 is $5000 just for the chip.
Not sure what you're looking at as you didn't give a link, but perhaps you're confusing Pioneer and Oasis?
The 64 core Pioneer prebuilt with case, power supply, SSD, video card, 128 GB RAM for $2500 is quite reasonably priced against commercially built 16 core x86 machines, if your workload can keep 64 cores busy. Each core is around 1/4 the speed of current x86, but there are four times as many.
Don't forget 64 core x86 is $5000 just for the chip.
I clicked through the GP's second link and the pre-order link which took me here: https://arace.tech/products/pre-order-milk-v-oasis-16-core-r...
This appears to be the (voucher for the) "chip" but I don't see any board to mount it on other than the Pioneer.
Again, I admit I know nothing about the RISC-V ecosystem so apologies, I'm just curious.
This appears to be the (voucher for the) "chip" but I don't see any board to mount it on other than the Pioneer.
Again, I admit I know nothing about the RISC-V ecosystem so apologies, I'm just curious.
To clarify, Milk-V Oasis is the board, not the chip.
The chip is SG2380, and it comes soldered onto the board.
Thus the preorder is for the board, which includes the chip.
This is a Mini-ITX board, and you're meant to provide RAM, storage, power supply, case and whatever else needed.
The chip is SG2380, and it comes soldered onto the board.
Thus the preorder is for the board, which includes the chip.
This is a Mini-ITX board, and you're meant to provide RAM, storage, power supply, case and whatever else needed.
The unbelievably low price price milk-v listed was $120.
Sipeed mentioned something abour $300.
I presume that the milk-v one might be just the cpu+motherboard, and sipeed included ram and gpu in the price, but thats all speculation.
If it's anywhere in the $300 range I'd be very happy.
Just for scale the specint numbers from the P670 are on Cortex A76 level, so you get what the rp5 has, but you get way more cores.
I presume that the milk-v one might be just the cpu+motherboard, and sipeed included ram and gpu in the price, but thats all speculation.
If it's anywhere in the $300 range I'd be very happy.
Just for scale the specint numbers from the P670 are on Cortex A76 level, so you get what the rp5 has, but you get way more cores.
> Just for scale the specint numbers from the P670 are on Cortex A76 level,
A78 level, 12 SPECint2006/GHz.
It's P470 (Horse Creek, if it ever appears) and Dubhe-90 that are at A76 8 SPECInt2006/GHz level.
And, for completeness, P870 is 18 SPECInt2006/GHz.
A78 level, 12 SPECint2006/GHz.
It's P470 (Horse Creek, if it ever appears) and Dubhe-90 that are at A76 8 SPECInt2006/GHz level.
And, for completeness, P870 is 18 SPECInt2006/GHz.
Interesting, and what form factor is this in? Are we talking mATX/ITX style board as opposed to an SBC?
It says mini ITX: https://community.milkv.io/t/introducing-the-milk-v-oasis-wi...
That makes sense, and sounds like an excellent deal.
+1 on your initial comment. Exactly how I feel about the current situation.
MilkV Oasis with SG2380 would be the end-game for majority of developers, but they are definitely loosing money if they keep starting price at 120 USD. They don't have it frozen (they changed the SoC specification some weeks ago) thus I wouldn't be surprised to see this slip into 2025. I wouldn't be surprised if this outperforms MilkV Pioneer.
MilkV Oasis with SG2380 would be the end-game for majority of developers, but they are definitely loosing money if they keep starting price at 120 USD. They don't have it frozen (they changed the SoC specification some weeks ago) thus I wouldn't be surprised to see this slip into 2025. I wouldn't be surprised if this outperforms MilkV Pioneer.
They're counting on most purchasers not preordering, and thus not getting the preorder discount.
Which is a reasonable assumption to make. SG2380 will surprise many as it launches and gets reviewed and talked about.
Which is a reasonable assumption to make. SG2380 will surprise many as it launches and gets reviewed and talked about.
I placed an order for 4 coupons :D
My question is, will the future Milk-V Oasis laptop have a TrackPoint like the Lichee Console 4A has, or will greater market demand for a more powerful RISC-V laptop lead to nixing TrackPoint for cost optimization?
The author mentions if you want a small laptop today, you need to go to eBay and buy an old UMPC. This is not correct, there are some modern mini laptops. I purchased a new 8" mini laptop with folding touchscreen and an intel N100 CPU from AliExpress.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805658668421.html
Specs: Intel N100 12GB RAM NVME SSD Slot 1280x800 Touchscreen (with pen support) USB-C port (supports charging and DisplayPort) HDMI Ethernet (1 gigabit) WiFi 6 Bluetooth 5.2
It's actually a pretty decent computer for being a no-name Chinese device. It has a backlit keyboard and my Microsoft Surface pen works perfectly on it. The 1280x800 LCD is low-res by todays standards, but at 8" is just fine. The 800 vertical resolution does mean that some modern apps get pushed behind the taskbar (on Windows 10). The cursor touchpad is difficult to be precise with, but you have the touchscreen with pen support if you need to select smaller items.
Around Black Friday it was $245 + tax (Without an SSD, I preferred to install my own name-brand SSD) so keep an eye out for sales.
The UEFI appears to be fully unlocked and has pages and pages of options. There are options to adjust CPU boost and voltage settings but I haven't been able to get the CPU to pull more than 6.5w.
A downside of not buying from a real company: The drivers for the device are emailed to you in a .zip file from the seller. So that is pretty sketchy, but it's the same for any of these Aliexpress devices.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805658668421.html
Specs: Intel N100 12GB RAM NVME SSD Slot 1280x800 Touchscreen (with pen support) USB-C port (supports charging and DisplayPort) HDMI Ethernet (1 gigabit) WiFi 6 Bluetooth 5.2
It's actually a pretty decent computer for being a no-name Chinese device. It has a backlit keyboard and my Microsoft Surface pen works perfectly on it. The 1280x800 LCD is low-res by todays standards, but at 8" is just fine. The 800 vertical resolution does mean that some modern apps get pushed behind the taskbar (on Windows 10). The cursor touchpad is difficult to be precise with, but you have the touchscreen with pen support if you need to select smaller items.
Around Black Friday it was $245 + tax (Without an SSD, I preferred to install my own name-brand SSD) so keep an eye out for sales.
The UEFI appears to be fully unlocked and has pages and pages of options. There are options to adjust CPU boost and voltage settings but I haven't been able to get the CPU to pull more than 6.5w.
A downside of not buying from a real company: The drivers for the device are emailed to you in a .zip file from the seller. So that is pretty sketchy, but it's the same for any of these Aliexpress devices.
There are also all of the various GPD devices[0] as well if you're looking for something a bit more expensive that theoretically has more of a reputation.
[0]https://www.gpd.hk/
[0]https://www.gpd.hk/
I have a GPD Micro PC running Linux that fits in my pocket. It’s been a very useful device, even has a classic serial port which I have used in data center to access a server which had lost all it’s network interfaces, found to be caused by a counterfeit nic card which failed.
I see others claiming GPD has bad build quality. That’s not my experience at all.
I’m currently looking to upgrade to something more powerful I can carry around hopefully just as easy. I’m leaning towards either their GPD Win 4 [0] [1] or the very latest GPD Win Mini.
[0] https://liliputing.com/gpd-win-4-2023-handheld-gaming-pc-wit... [1] https://www.gpd.hk/gpdwin4
[2] https://www.gpd.hk/gpdwinminisdfewr
Their occulink port and USB4 is the real deal and allows eGPUs both for gaming and compute.
Though I’m not a gamer I’m currently leaning towards the Win 4 because it has a dock system and an LTE module, which the Win Mini lacks both. However perhaps the Win Mini keyboard and form factor is more conventional.
I see others claiming GPD has bad build quality. That’s not my experience at all.
I’m currently looking to upgrade to something more powerful I can carry around hopefully just as easy. I’m leaning towards either their GPD Win 4 [0] [1] or the very latest GPD Win Mini.
[0] https://liliputing.com/gpd-win-4-2023-handheld-gaming-pc-wit... [1] https://www.gpd.hk/gpdwin4
[2] https://www.gpd.hk/gpdwinminisdfewr
Their occulink port and USB4 is the real deal and allows eGPUs both for gaming and compute.
Though I’m not a gamer I’m currently leaning towards the Win 4 because it has a dock system and an LTE module, which the Win Mini lacks both. However perhaps the Win Mini keyboard and form factor is more conventional.
The GPD Pocket 3 is the closes equivalent device and I considered it as well. But, you can buy two of these AliExpress N100/12GB RAM laptops for the price of one Pentium N6000/8GB RAM GPD Pocket. The i7 GPD Pocket pushes $1,000.
Also, based on reddit posts, GPD's build quality and customer service doesn't seem to be any better than the AliExpress laptop.
Also, based on reddit posts, GPD's build quality and customer service doesn't seem to be any better than the AliExpress laptop.
The latest GPD devices with occulink, real USB4, and 64G mem are in a different league of device capabilities though. They can even drive 3d AR and VR glasses.
I can't recommend GPD products - they're just not made to last, and rely on hacked-up Windows installations to drive them. Components will start failing 1-2 years on, without generally-available replacement parts, and GPD will have already moved on to their new shiny by that point, if you can even get them to respond. These devices are made to look good on YouTube unboxing videos and tick off checklists of hot features, and hold together just long enough to reel in the next batch of buyers.
Which is a shame, because the Win 2's form-factor and cursor control scheme are basically perfect for what I want out of a handheld PC, and also seemingly unique.
Which is a shame, because the Win 2's form-factor and cursor control scheme are basically perfect for what I want out of a handheld PC, and also seemingly unique.
One was reviewed in 2021... https://liliputing.com/gpd-pocket-3-mini-laptop-review/
There's an entire site dedicated to tiny devices
https://liliputing.com/
https://liliputing.com/
Seriously want. Few questions if I may:
- Have tried a Linux distro on it?
- What is battery life like (especially under Linux)?
- How is the keyboard generally? (Not expecting miracles but is it usable)
- Have tried a Linux distro on it?
- What is battery life like (especially under Linux)?
- How is the keyboard generally? (Not expecting miracles but is it usable)
I have not personally tried linux on it. This laptop has device specific drivers that may be difficult to get working correctly under linux.
The screen is likely sourced from a tablet, so it's default orientation is portrait. This means that the UEFI displays in that orientation, rather than the correct landscape orientation. The included windows drivers correct that.
There is also a sensor that rotates the screen automatically when you fold it into tablet mode. In device manager it is labeled "Bosch Accelerometer".
Wifi is labeled as a "Realtek 8852BE". But the chip looks pretty generic on the mainboard, I'm not sure if it's a real Realtek chip.
The sound card is generically labeled as "High Definition Audio Device".
The keyboard is actually pretty decent. It's only 7.5" wide, and some of the keys are in a strange position. But has a better feel than a MacBook butterfly keyboard.
Battery life I haven't tested. Right now at 77% Windows is estimating "3 hours remaining". Using it lightly I'd estimate around 4 hours of battery life.
The screen is likely sourced from a tablet, so it's default orientation is portrait. This means that the UEFI displays in that orientation, rather than the correct landscape orientation. The included windows drivers correct that.
There is also a sensor that rotates the screen automatically when you fold it into tablet mode. In device manager it is labeled "Bosch Accelerometer".
Wifi is labeled as a "Realtek 8852BE". But the chip looks pretty generic on the mainboard, I'm not sure if it's a real Realtek chip.
The sound card is generically labeled as "High Definition Audio Device".
The keyboard is actually pretty decent. It's only 7.5" wide, and some of the keys are in a strange position. But has a better feel than a MacBook butterfly keyboard.
Battery life I haven't tested. Right now at 77% Windows is estimating "3 hours remaining". Using it lightly I'd estimate around 4 hours of battery life.
Thanks for taking the time to answer these. The thing you say about the display is interesting. I guess that means subpixel rendering (ClearType) will be suboptimal when in "laptop" mode but not a big deal.
Missed having a true pocket computer since the Psion/Windows CE days. I'll probably end up buying one... :-)
Missed having a true pocket computer since the Psion/Windows CE days. I'll probably end up buying one... :-)
> I guess that means subpixel rendering (ClearType) will be suboptimal when in "laptop" mode but not a big deal.
This should be fixable in Linux, where you can configure the subpixel order and orientation (horizontal or vertical).
This should be fixable in Linux, where you can configure the subpixel order and orientation (horizontal or vertical).
Here's another example, similar in form factor to old Sony VAIO UMPCs
https://www.ayaneo.com/product/AYANEO-SLIDE.html
https://www.ayaneo.com/product/AYANEO-SLIDE.html
Ayaneo Slide vs GPD Win 4 seems to be an interesting debate. Based on my research so far, Win 4 has occulink and optional LTE module in it’s favor. Slide has tilt screen and supposedly slightly better keyboard. Is there anybody who is Linux focused and has laid eyes on both?
A 6" display with Windows 11 sounds like an exercise in futility to me. That form factor probably works well for gaming, but In my experience it doesn't work well for anything else. I'm not a gamer so I prefer a more traditional laptop style device.
A maybe, maybe not, less sketchy alternative could be a Nanote P8 from Japan. They were released in 2021 and can be bought for $200-$230 new and shipped from Japan on ebay.
The downsides are the much slower Intel 4200 CPU and less, slower RAM, slightly smaller 7" screen. I would not be surprised if the manufacturer of the Ali laptop is the same as that of the Nanote.
The downsides are the much slower Intel 4200 CPU and less, slower RAM, slightly smaller 7" screen. I would not be surprised if the manufacturer of the Ali laptop is the same as that of the Nanote.
>A downside of not buying from a real company: The drivers for the device are emailed to you in a .zip file from the seller. So that is pretty sketchy, but it's the same for any of these Aliexpress devices.
Have fun hosting a CCP exit node
Have fun hosting a CCP exit node
Obviously security is a concern when using these cheap Chinese devices. That said, I have not seen any unusual activity on my network.
Is anyone making RISC-V SoCs outside of China?
Trade restrictions have given China serious incentives to make RISC-V CPUs domesticly, unlike every other country that can just buy AMD64 and ARM chips. Given the geopolitics of the situation, while RISC-V is gaining marketshare in the microcontroller space, it looks like RISC-V will be the Chinese-bloc CPU ISA while the west sticks with what we already have.
Trade restrictions have given China serious incentives to make RISC-V CPUs domesticly, unlike every other country that can just buy AMD64 and ARM chips. Given the geopolitics of the situation, while RISC-V is gaining marketshare in the microcontroller space, it looks like RISC-V will be the Chinese-bloc CPU ISA while the west sticks with what we already have.
RISC-V is becoming a worldwide interop standard, and a real one, namely royalty free and which will be stable in time once we get all the "now we know" features, and all that at the ISA level (x86_64 and ARM are _NOT_ worldwide royalty free).
And don't be mistaken, there is no perfect ISA (it is said "average"), it does not exist, only a set of trade-offs and compromises which will not fit all use-cases perfectly.
RISC-V is a US Berkley initiative. Have a look at wikipedia where you'll find most of the answers to your questions.
That said, to be a success, RISC-V will need _extremely_ performant implementations all across the board ("embedded", desktop, server), micro-archs and silicium process. It will have to survive its mistakes: for instance critical bugs in its major micro-archs or design flaws (you have to presume it will happen).
And without access to the best silicium process, it _WON'T_ have performant implementations. Because there is no "enough" in the silicium industry, it wants always more transistors and less power consumption, and each new silicium process brings significant improvements on those metrics.
This is where chinese chip designers are in trouble: Taiwan has the foundries with the best silicium process, and now you get US restrictions on EU EUV tools.
Even though I wish intel and amd to switch to risc-v in the not to far away future, I would give attention at the people over there who would try to torpedo RISC-V. The other one, ARM, well, they will try everything to sabotage it, RISC-V is a death sentence for them... unless they clearly move to RISC-V ultra performant micro-arch design.
And don't be mistaken, there is no perfect ISA (it is said "average"), it does not exist, only a set of trade-offs and compromises which will not fit all use-cases perfectly.
RISC-V is a US Berkley initiative. Have a look at wikipedia where you'll find most of the answers to your questions.
That said, to be a success, RISC-V will need _extremely_ performant implementations all across the board ("embedded", desktop, server), micro-archs and silicium process. It will have to survive its mistakes: for instance critical bugs in its major micro-archs or design flaws (you have to presume it will happen).
And without access to the best silicium process, it _WON'T_ have performant implementations. Because there is no "enough" in the silicium industry, it wants always more transistors and less power consumption, and each new silicium process brings significant improvements on those metrics.
This is where chinese chip designers are in trouble: Taiwan has the foundries with the best silicium process, and now you get US restrictions on EU EUV tools.
Even though I wish intel and amd to switch to risc-v in the not to far away future, I would give attention at the people over there who would try to torpedo RISC-V. The other one, ARM, well, they will try everything to sabotage it, RISC-V is a death sentence for them... unless they clearly move to RISC-V ultra performant micro-arch design.
RISC-V is already putting the squeeze on ARM in the embedded market. RISC-V is fewer gates at almost every performance level the embedded market is interested in due to having a tighter, non-legacy ISA (there's even the open SERV core which fits RISC-V into an insanely small 2.1KGe).
RISC-V likely has a future in mobile devices as it crawls up the performance tree like ARM did. This leaves ARM in a tight squeeze between x86 on the top and RISC-V on the bottom.
RISC-V likely has a future in mobile devices as it crawls up the performance tree like ARM did. This leaves ARM in a tight squeeze between x86 on the top and RISC-V on the bottom.
This is the first time I've ever seen anyone write 'silicium' and sure enough, it's an alternative name for silicon.
I wonder if this is a more common name for silicon in some other part of the world (I'm in the US). I don't think I've ever seen this spelling before today, and I'm not a young person.
I wonder if this is a more common name for silicon in some other part of the world (I'm in the US). I don't think I've ever seen this spelling before today, and I'm not a young person.
It is the spelling used in e.g. the Netherlands, a country where the light metal used in aircraft goes by the name Aluminium which also happens to be the correct version [1] of the bastardised Aluminum.
The word Silicon 'feels' wrong to a Dutch speaker because it makes it sound like integrated circuits are made out of the same stuff used to assemble aquariums, fake boobs and heat-resistant flexible cookware. That stuff is called 'siliconenrubber' or 'siliconen' (depending on the application and who you ask) in Dutch.
[1] a bit like vi vs emacs for chemistry in other words
The word Silicon 'feels' wrong to a Dutch speaker because it makes it sound like integrated circuits are made out of the same stuff used to assemble aquariums, fake boobs and heat-resistant flexible cookware. That stuff is called 'siliconenrubber' or 'siliconen' (depending on the application and who you ask) in Dutch.
[1] a bit like vi vs emacs for chemistry in other words
The original name was alumium.
And it sounds like you're saying aluminium got corrupted into aluminum, which is not the case.
And it sounds like you're saying aluminium got corrupted into aluminum, which is not the case.
Silicone has silicon in it.
honestly, I'd be in favor of renaming to computium. then you get to teach kids that sand is computium-dioxide!
That's it, now it finally becomes clear. Hear me.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not just a story, it is the story. The story of our planet, Earth, a planet-sized computer built by the Amaltheans to find the definitive question to life, the Universe and everything for which the answer is '42'. Things went awry when an ark full of telephone cleaners crashed on the planet/computer which made it come up with the wrong question. The book only mentions that they'd have to build a new Earth to run the program again but now it can finally be proven that they did no such thing - they just used the old one and recycled the top layer of the machine's substrate and left us the evidence: sand. Billions of tons of recycled computing equipment cover our beaches, filling up the bottom of the seas and covers parts of the planet.
Think about this the next time you're laying a brick wall, pour some concrete or are annoyed by the gritty stuff between your teeth when you eat your lunch on the beach. You're literally eating computing history and who knows what effects that will have on the final outcome.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not just a story, it is the story. The story of our planet, Earth, a planet-sized computer built by the Amaltheans to find the definitive question to life, the Universe and everything for which the answer is '42'. Things went awry when an ark full of telephone cleaners crashed on the planet/computer which made it come up with the wrong question. The book only mentions that they'd have to build a new Earth to run the program again but now it can finally be proven that they did no such thing - they just used the old one and recycled the top layer of the machine's substrate and left us the evidence: sand. Billions of tons of recycled computing equipment cover our beaches, filling up the bottom of the seas and covers parts of the planet.
Think about this the next time you're laying a brick wall, pour some concrete or are annoyed by the gritty stuff between your teeth when you eat your lunch on the beach. You're literally eating computing history and who knows what effects that will have on the final outcome.
Yes. We knew it as silicium in the school and it took me some time to realise that silicon is the same thing.
For a long time I assumed that Silicon is the "unofficial", American word for it, while silicium is the scientific name.
For a long time I assumed that Silicon is the "unofficial", American word for it, while silicium is the scientific name.
Nvidea is now producing specific models of their products specced in
a way that is currently legal to sell them to China.
The US doesn't like it, so they may change the rules again. which becomes a bit of a whackamole.
Sanctions like these gives China a lot more incentive for a reunification with Taiwan. Some say the fabs are rigged to blow if this was to occur. If so, it would have massive negative consequences for the world. Where as new management would have far less of an impact, though some countries might find themselves under sanctions on what type of chips they could buy.
The US doesn't like it, so they may change the rules again. which becomes a bit of a whackamole.
Sanctions like these gives China a lot more incentive for a reunification with Taiwan. Some say the fabs are rigged to blow if this was to occur. If so, it would have massive negative consequences for the world. Where as new management would have far less of an impact, though some countries might find themselves under sanctions on what type of chips they could buy.
> The US doesn't like it, so they may change the rules again. which becomes a bit of a whackamole.
There were rumors like that, but I don't believe it.
The limits nvidia is following are very clear. They cover both total compute power and compute power per square millimeter, in different combinations. nvidia is doing exactly what they were supposed to do. No limits are being pushed, and there is no whack-a-mole on the horizon.
Even if the limits get reduced at some point, it would be because of political winds shifting, not because the current limits aren't doing what they were supposed to do.
There were rumors like that, but I don't believe it.
The limits nvidia is following are very clear. They cover both total compute power and compute power per square millimeter, in different combinations. nvidia is doing exactly what they were supposed to do. No limits are being pushed, and there is no whack-a-mole on the horizon.
Even if the limits get reduced at some point, it would be because of political winds shifting, not because the current limits aren't doing what they were supposed to do.
'reunification'
Would not be the first time the cheaper technology becomes the market leader instead of the "better" one.
Time will tell.
I've seen a few companies adopting RISC-V for embedded applications outside of China, like the management processor on Nvidia GPUs or Western Digitals SSD controllers, but those are places you'd probably use a small Cortex-M core rather than a big Cortex-A SoC if you were using ARM. Nvidia is still all-in on ARM for big processors.
Western digital and Nvidia are both shipping riscv (just not as standalone processors)
I could get over the perf but the power consumption is rough.
It seems strange that the USB hub is using so much power. From a (leaked?) data sheet I don’t see any way to disable it - but it does have firmware which can be updated? There is also a 5V-3.3V LDO built in so I wonder if that may be what is dissipating so much power.
The AMS1153 looks like a similar story…
It seems strange that the USB hub is using so much power. From a (leaked?) data sheet I don’t see any way to disable it - but it does have firmware which can be updated? There is also a 5V-3.3V LDO built in so I wonder if that may be what is dissipating so much power.
The AMS1153 looks like a similar story…
Yup, something is strange there. There are 14in x86 laptops that consume 7W or 8W in idle (with the screen turned on but on minimal brightness).
USB 3.0 can eat alot of power due to high speed, if it's always active...
USB 3.0 host controllers and hubs do not need to consume large amounts of power nor do they need to always be active, if designed well. USB 3.0 has LPM (link power management) and Microsoft wrote up a nice overview: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/u...
IIRC pi4 also had VIA USB hub power issues early on.
I 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 closer to a Raspberry Pi 3 than a 4 or 5.
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 closer to a Raspberry Pi 3 than a 4 or 5.
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
1T Coremark: Pi 3: 3504 Lichee: 6900 Pi 4: 7938
have you tested its rv64v vector performance
Kinda hard to compare it against anything, but here are some benchmarks: https://camel-cdr.github.io/rvv-bench-results/milkv_pioneer/...
this is fantastic! they're the first sophon benchmark results i've seen, and they're far more comprehensive than most benchmark results of any kind
have you run into any toolchain difficulties due to the 0.7.1 nature of the rvv?
have you run into any toolchain difficulties due to the 0.7.1 nature of the rvv?
Yes.
I'm using the old gnu toolchain branch from brucehoult and write the benchmarks such that they work in rvv 1.0 and rvv 0.7.1. To help with that I've got a gnu assembler macro file that does 1 to 1 instruction translation when possible and for the other cases I need to #if/#else/#endif.
I'm working on rvv unicode conversions, and plan to release a blog post/article with benchmarks and explanation soon. The problem is that I've uses c intrinsics to write it, so I need to manually translate the assembly code to rvv 0.7.1 compatible code.
That entails
Also, the board I've got access to (it might be an eval board, idk) has a bug in vredmax, so I also needed to adjust the code to not use that. (I've yet to investigate that further)
I'm using the old gnu toolchain branch from brucehoult and write the benchmarks such that they work in rvv 1.0 and rvv 0.7.1. To help with that I've got a gnu assembler macro file that does 1 to 1 instruction translation when possible and for the other cases I need to #if/#else/#endif.
I'm working on rvv unicode conversions, and plan to release a blog post/article with benchmarks and explanation soon. The problem is that I've uses c intrinsics to write it, so I need to manually translate the assembly code to rvv 0.7.1 compatible code.
That entails
vsetivli -> vsetvli
vle64 -> vle32
vmvNr -> vmv.v.v & 2 vsetvli
vzext.vN -> N/2 vwaddu & N/2+1 vsetvli
Also, the board I've got access to (it might be an eval board, idk) has a bug in vredmax, so I also needed to adjust the code to not use that. (I've yet to investigate that further)
thanks, this information is fantastic
i really hope to have a chance to read your blog post! i haven't tried rvv programming at all
i really hope to have a chance to read your blog post! i haven't tried rvv programming at all
this is a great resource! any chance you can add a matmul benchmark to this?
I was thinking about that, but matmul is so too hardware specific (cache sizes, and the like), and I'm not confident I can get an implementation that can get close to max performance.
getting big matmul good is hard, but up to about 100x100 you don't need to worry about cache sizes, it's all about the microkernel
Not (yet)
that might be the hotspot of most everyday user interactions: decoding video, compositing windows, scrolling panes, redrawing windows, drawing text glyphs
Is JIT for JavaScript supported on RISC-V? This was an issue in PPC for a long time.
Per the V8 site, the JIT is only fully supported on x86 and ARM. There is a RISC-V port available on a YMMV basis but I don't know what state it's currently in.
https://v8.dev/docs/ports
https://v8.dev/docs/ports
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
it is a problem that the compilers for riscv are still pretty bad. it will take a few years (and more cheap risc-v dev boards) before gcc and clang actually know how to generate good code for risc-v (this is especially a problem for things like video payback and encryption that tend to be written with significant amounts of hand tuned assembly)
There is no problem with the compilers for RISC-V, what are you talking about?
the compilers work (produce valid code), but things like chip specific instruction cost models, full support for vector operations, and stuff like that are nowhere near where they are for x86 or M1 (because there are way less users and developers to make sure the codegen is optimal)
[citation needed] Do you have anything concrete to support "nowhere near where they are for x86 or M1"? I literally eyeball RISC-V code all day long for a living and it's not like there a massive performance lost to the compiler.
Core-specific cost models are a bad idea when you have a large variety of cores in use. Auto-vectorisation doesn't work well on anything, except in the most trivial cases, and none of the popular boards [1] yet have the official RISC-V vector ISA anyway -- that will change this year, hopefully.
[1] there is now in the last month or two one (1) board with RVV 1.0 but it's only single core vs the quad core in popular boards, and also has only 512 MB of RAM vs 4 / 8 / 16 GB on the popular boards (and 128 GB on the Pioneer).
[1] there is now in the last month or two one (1) board with RVV 1.0 but it's only single core vs the quad core in popular boards, and also has only 512 MB of RAM vs 4 / 8 / 16 GB on the popular boards (and 128 GB on the Pioneer).
Is there a reason for a dearth of PCIe connectivity on these small SoCs? Is it difficult to implement? Perhaps a pincount issue?
The big problem with these small and cheap systems is that you can't connect NVMe drives to them and you pay a huge performance penalty.
The big problem with these small and cheap systems is that you can't connect NVMe drives to them and you pay a huge performance penalty.
Generally high speed serdes IO blocks, which are needed for PCIe, in ASIC design are rather high power consumers. Even on Intel and AMD laptop spec CPUs there's generally many fewer PCIe lanes than on their desktop counterparts. The silicon space needed is also not small and sometimes the silicon process for making good low power but high performance serdes transceivers is not the best process for making the other things needed on the SOC, which can be solved with chiplet style designs but then you have another problem.
Most inexpensive and small SOC just can't justify adding such costs and complexities given that it's very likely their target volume buyer doesn't need such features.
I suspect this RISC-V SOC is priced in the $10-20 range, but I have no true understanding of the cost of this part. In that price range for SOCs almost no one has 4 PCIe lanes on offer, but some do have 1 or 2.
Most inexpensive and small SOC just can't justify adding such costs and complexities given that it's very likely their target volume buyer doesn't need such features.
I suspect this RISC-V SOC is priced in the $10-20 range, but I have no true understanding of the cost of this part. In that price range for SOCs almost no one has 4 PCIe lanes on offer, but some do have 1 or 2.
The rival JH7110 SoC (it's like A55 to this chip's A72 -- slightly slower but cheaper and much lower power consumption) has PCIe. The VisionFive 2 brings one lane out to M.2 NVMe. The Star64 brings it out to a standard PCIe connector.
most SOC CPUs don't really have a huge PCIe capability to begin with- possibly 1 or 2 lanes total; and you probably want USB, Ethernet etc;
You wouldn't get very much performance anyway, as you only want many PCIe links in order to get bandwidth through them which you're unlikely to do on an anaemic CPU.
to-wit: you wouldn't get good NVMe performance even if you had the pinouts and the CPU had 4x Lanes of PCIe anyway.
You wouldn't get very much performance anyway, as you only want many PCIe links in order to get bandwidth through them which you're unlikely to do on an anaemic CPU.
to-wit: you wouldn't get good NVMe performance even if you had the pinouts and the CPU had 4x Lanes of PCIe anyway.
just having 1 or 2 lanes of gen 3 with an m.2 would be really nice. 2 gen 3 lanes gives you 2gbps which isn't fast compared to the 4 gen 4 lanes on modern ssds, but it's fast enough that it won't slow down the rest of the system.
> you wouldn't get good NVMe performance even if you had the pinouts and the CPU had 4x Lanes of PCIe anyway.
... compared to eMMc or sata over usb? You won't get the full performance of the ssd, but i guarantee it will be much better.
... compared to eMMc or sata over usb? You won't get the full performance of the ssd, but i guarantee it will be much better.
> apt update fetches packages from Chinese server
So is it not official Debian? If so, that’s concerning!
So is it not official Debian? If so, that’s concerning!
I interpreted it as "the default apt server is the official Chinese mirror"
https://www.debian.org/mirror/list
http://ftp.cn.debian.org/debian/
https://www.debian.org/mirror/list
http://ftp.cn.debian.org/debian/
Yep. Or it could be official Debian + some specific packages, a bit like Mobian.
There's a group as ISCAS who are rebuilding everything in Fedora for unclear reasons (Fedora has a perfectly good effort to build RISC-V packages at http://fedora.riscv.rocks). Not sure if they're also rebuilding Debian too.
The thing to be checked are the installed GPG keys that are trusted for package signing.
First tests of RISC-V laptop reveal a number of software and hardware issues, but show a path to freedom.
> a path to freedom
Free how? Just because RISC-V is an open ISA doesn't mean that the silicon is open. None of the manufacturers release the full design of the SoC. Many RISC-V SoCs are still relying on blobs.
Most (all?) current available RISC-V SoCs are designed and produced in China. So I wouldn't be so sure about a SoC designed by Alibaba to be free of blobs, license violations, patent infringement or even hardware backdoors.
Free how? Just because RISC-V is an open ISA doesn't mean that the silicon is open. None of the manufacturers release the full design of the SoC. Many RISC-V SoCs are still relying on blobs.
Most (all?) current available RISC-V SoCs are designed and produced in China. So I wouldn't be so sure about a SoC designed by Alibaba to be free of blobs, license violations, patent infringement or even hardware backdoors.
It's just a step. We are not there yet.
But we have to continue one step at a time.
"a step" is not always progress in such a complicated landscape with so many dimensions to make progress in.
I like having an open development process for an ISA, but it's one of the least important factors in total computer openness. Many other boards are probably more free despite using a less free ISA.
The patents on basic x86_64 with SSE2 have all expired anyway.
I like having an open development process for an ISA, but it's one of the least important factors in total computer openness. Many other boards are probably more free despite using a less free ISA.
The patents on basic x86_64 with SSE2 have all expired anyway.
this is my take-away too.
RISC-V in a laptop was unthinkable just a few years ago, now it's a reality (at least a prototype) and performance is underwhelming, just like it has been for ARM before.
For a true "freedom machine" I would be perfectly fine with a performance trade-off but it's also not a given that the gap will be so wide forever.
This is an excellent step and to show that it's functioning is huge.
RISC-V in a laptop was unthinkable just a few years ago, now it's a reality (at least a prototype) and performance is underwhelming, just like it has been for ARM before.
For a true "freedom machine" I would be perfectly fine with a performance trade-off but it's also not a given that the gap will be so wide forever.
This is an excellent step and to show that it's functioning is huge.
Couple of observations here;
- RISC-V has miles to go, I worry that with the current pace of ARM it may never catch up. - The assertion you can’t buy UMPCs in 2024 is patently false. GPD and a whole host of manufacturers make em. - A non mobile optimised blog in this day and age? That was a chore to read on the go.
- RISC-V has miles to go, I worry that with the current pace of ARM it may never catch up. - The assertion you can’t buy UMPCs in 2024 is patently false. GPD and a whole host of manufacturers make em. - A non mobile optimised blog in this day and age? That was a chore to read on the go.
> RISC-V has miles to go, I worry that with the current pace of ARM it may never catch up
That's a weird assertion. This machine is basically competitive with a Pi 4 (certainly miles ahead of Pi 3, both in CPU power and in having 8 or 16 GB RAM vs 0.5 or 1 GB).
The initial version of the RISC-V spec was ratified in July 2019, and the C910 core in this chip was announced in the same month. The TH1520 SoC hit the market in June 2023 (my board was delivered that month), four years after the CPU core was announced, and also four years after the Pi 4.
Note that the Arm A72 cores in the Pi 4 were announced in February 2015, so it was 4 1/2 years from core to Pi 4 using it, slightly longer than the THead C910 core announcement to Lichee Pi 4A shipping.
The Arm A53 also took about four years from announcement to the Pi 3 and Odroid C2. And the Arm A76 took four years from announcement to the RK3588 and Rock 5 shipping.
This is just the industry.
If the SG2380 machine(s) really come out this year then they will be faster than the A76 RK3588 boards and Pi 5 and around 2 to 2.5 years behind. But their P670 cores are equivalent to Arm A78, which is not available on an SBC -- and there are 16 of them, which is also not available in any cheap Arm-based SBC.
That's halving the gap.
SiFive's fastest core, the P870, is around Arm Cortex-X3 performance, and announced just 16 months later (October 2023 vs June 2022).
That's a weird assertion. This machine is basically competitive with a Pi 4 (certainly miles ahead of Pi 3, both in CPU power and in having 8 or 16 GB RAM vs 0.5 or 1 GB).
The initial version of the RISC-V spec was ratified in July 2019, and the C910 core in this chip was announced in the same month. The TH1520 SoC hit the market in June 2023 (my board was delivered that month), four years after the CPU core was announced, and also four years after the Pi 4.
Note that the Arm A72 cores in the Pi 4 were announced in February 2015, so it was 4 1/2 years from core to Pi 4 using it, slightly longer than the THead C910 core announcement to Lichee Pi 4A shipping.
The Arm A53 also took about four years from announcement to the Pi 3 and Odroid C2. And the Arm A76 took four years from announcement to the RK3588 and Rock 5 shipping.
This is just the industry.
If the SG2380 machine(s) really come out this year then they will be faster than the A76 RK3588 boards and Pi 5 and around 2 to 2.5 years behind. But their P670 cores are equivalent to Arm A78, which is not available on an SBC -- and there are 16 of them, which is also not available in any cheap Arm-based SBC.
That's halving the gap.
SiFive's fastest core, the P870, is around Arm Cortex-X3 performance, and announced just 16 months later (October 2023 vs June 2022).
> RISC-V has miles to go, I worry that with the current pace of ARM it may never catch up.
Only assuming development progress happens linearly. In fact, technical progress goes exponentially. It took years to even get to the point to have RISC-V SoCs and now we are seeing the first laptop products. The pace will accelerate, especially with the promise of RISC-V being a cheaper platform to build hardware on than ARM and X86.
Only assuming development progress happens linearly. In fact, technical progress goes exponentially. It took years to even get to the point to have RISC-V SoCs and now we are seeing the first laptop products. The pace will accelerate, especially with the promise of RISC-V being a cheaper platform to build hardware on than ARM and X86.
> In fact, technical progress goes exponentially.
Their point was that ARM is also progressing exponentially.
Their point was that ARM is also progressing exponentially.
This line of arguing would imply that an established company selling established products would not need to fear any competition as long as it can keep the pace of its innovation cycles. While this line of reasoning is not wrong it completely ignores the possibility of "disruptive innovation" to use a buzz word here. I honestly think RISC-V could be a shooting star that will come to many as a surprise. And as long as RISC-V lags in performance behind ARM it could still compete successfully in price due to free licensing of RISC-V versus expensive licensing of ARM64. This has been AMD's strategy for many years (before they had better integrated GPUs compared to Intel). And think of how IBM completely lost its PC business to cheap competition.
But only a few companies (two? Arm and Apple?) develop new Arm designs, whereas anyone is free to develop new RISC-V designs.
Most of those new Risc-V designs Are on the extreme low end; not a bad thing, but there's not a ton of high performance Risc-V stuff happening.
It's more likely to fill in the ESP32 niche then the ARM one
It's more likely to fill in the ESP32 niche then the ARM one
> but there's not a ton of high performance Risc-V stuff happening.
Uhhh ... yes, there is.
Several companies designing very high performance RISC-V were founded in 2021 or so. Most of them have top designers fresh from designing the latest Apple, Intel, AMD chips and they are aiming to match current x86 and Apple performance.
You'll see their products in the market around 2026.
Uhhh ... yes, there is.
Several companies designing very high performance RISC-V were founded in 2021 or so. Most of them have top designers fresh from designing the latest Apple, Intel, AMD chips and they are aiming to match current x86 and Apple performance.
You'll see their products in the market around 2026.
I'd suggest anyone who wants to play with RISC-V to buy a MangoPi instead.
The software still isn't really in a working state. But I'd rather pay 30$ to figure that out over 800$.
The software still isn't really in a working state. But I'd rather pay 30$ to figure that out over 800$.
Of course a laptop with case, screen, battery etc costs more than a bare SBC.
The Milk-V Mars, with very similar performance to this (see other comments for JH7110 vs TH1520), starts from $39 with 2 GB RAM (and 4 GB or 8 GB options) and of course quad core 1.5 GHz dual-issue CPU. That's around 8x the compute performance of the 1 GB MangoPi MQ-pro, for $10 more. Or, for more bare-bones, the Mars CM is $34.
The Milk-V Mars, with very similar performance to this (see other comments for JH7110 vs TH1520), starts from $39 with 2 GB RAM (and 4 GB or 8 GB options) and of course quad core 1.5 GHz dual-issue CPU. That's around 8x the compute performance of the 1 GB MangoPi MQ-pro, for $10 more. Or, for more bare-bones, the Mars CM is $34.
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll admit I was really disappointed with the MangoPi.
I still think I'm going to wait a few years before buying another device.
I still think I'm going to wait a few years before buying another device.
Lichee Console 4A costs US$436.65 on AliExpress (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006174268912.html), you can get much cheaper used netbook for a fraction of its price.
My 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/...
https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/blob/master/arch/riscv/dts/...
Also the GPU doesn't have a free driver [currently]
The GPU doesn't have a closed driver that works either.
It's been a year for the JH7110 too, so I wouldn't hold my breath.
On Vision Five 2 everything is still softpipe in the official Debian from Star Five!
On the PineTab-V NOTHING involving the 3D part of the GPU works!
YouTube works for consumption, but that's not interesting for production.
To write/film a review of a SoC with GPU without running glgears is backwards.
I think the only hope now is for the upstream to gain a working driver in a year or two.
It's been a year for the JH7110 too, so I wouldn't hold my breath.
On Vision Five 2 everything is still softpipe in the official Debian from Star Five!
On the PineTab-V NOTHING involving the 3D part of the GPU works!
YouTube works for consumption, but that's not interesting for production.
To write/film a review of a SoC with GPU without running glgears is backwards.
I think the only hope now is for the upstream to gain a working driver in a year or two.
>I think the only hope now is for the upstream to gain a working driver in a year or two.
PowerVR driver is already part of mesa3d mainline[0].
Some definitions for the variant used in JH7110 have been added recently, but it's not yet operational.
0. https://mesamatrix.net/
PowerVR driver is already part of mesa3d mainline[0].
Some definitions for the variant used in JH7110 have been added recently, but it's not yet operational.
0. https://mesamatrix.net/
I'm not sure I would call this thing a blob. It is not code, but configuration data.
eMMc again :(
Is it so expensive to add 1 lane of pciexpress or at least sata? Not via usb, that doesn't count.
Is it so expensive to add 1 lane of pciexpress or at least sata? Not via usb, that doesn't count.
How difficult is working with risc v currently?
I’m guessing back Linux works but most precompiled stuff not?
I’m guessing back Linux works but most precompiled stuff not?
Nearly all Linux packages you might want to install - work with nothing special required. Migration to ARM earlier this century made vast majority of open source software portable. Precompiled x86-only surely will not work.
Debian officially supports RISC-V and is about there[0].
Whereas qemu-user will run e.g. x86 and arm binaries, should you ever need to.
This recent review of VisionFive2[1] has a little more info. There they even run popular games via x86 emulation.
0. https://buildd.debian.org/stats/
1. https://boilingsteam.com/vision-five-2-board-review/
Whereas qemu-user will run e.g. x86 and arm binaries, should you ever need to.
This recent review of VisionFive2[1] has a little more info. There they even run popular games via x86 emulation.
0. https://buildd.debian.org/stats/
1. https://boilingsteam.com/vision-five-2-board-review/
Not an expert, but I think anything compiled for the ISA implementation you have should work.
If there's an issue with RISC-V it's that it's not one ISA with additional instructions accumulating across generations (which I think describes x86), it's a core ISA with a variety of extension blocks that might or might not be present in your implementation. I think this means that any random RISC-V binary stands a greater chance of not working on a chip you've bought than e.g. any random x86 binary with an x86 chip.
If there's an issue with RISC-V it's that it's not one ISA with additional instructions accumulating across generations (which I think describes x86), it's a core ISA with a variety of extension blocks that might or might not be present in your implementation. I think this means that any random RISC-V binary stands a greater chance of not working on a chip you've bought than e.g. any random x86 binary with an x86 chip.
x86 has this problem too. Base x86 doesn't even support floating point. (and x87 which was the og way is now basically deprecated).
How does the Lichee Console 4A compare to a PinePhone (Pro) with attached Keyboard?
Why a trackpoint without the middle click? How do you scroll?
Page-up/down keys... There are likely other ways )
At a certain size, I'd rather just have a detachable split keyboard.
Does it use U-Boot or EFI?
It uses U-Boot, but you can use U-Boot to launch an EFI executable.
https://docs.u-boot.org/en/latest/board/thead/lpi4a.html https://docs.u-boot.org/en/latest/usage/cmd/bootefi.html
https://docs.u-boot.org/en/latest/board/thead/lpi4a.html https://docs.u-boot.org/en/latest/usage/cmd/bootefi.html
It can be both - uboot can emulate enough of EFI to start Linux.
AIUI Linux boot flow with this SoC goes
internal rom -> u-boot SPL --> opensbi --> u-boot --> Linux
internal rom -> u-boot SPL --> opensbi --> u-boot --> Linux
In kernel config I see:
CONFIG_EFI_STUB=y
CONFIG_EFI=y
If that's what identifies it
If that's what identifies it
That just defines what the Linux kernel will be able to do, it doesn't necessarily imply that the hardware is using UEFI for firmware to launch another bootloader or OS.
420€. No thanks
why is the battery life is so bad?
USB hub chip, USB<>SATA adapter - eating power for sure...
SoC voltage scaling - need to be checked.
tw1984(4)
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...