StarFive Tech. have been upstreaming on kernel, OpenSBI and U-Boot from several weeks now. Of course this is still weeks/months away (if not more, for all the features) from landing in stable releases. Even more for distributions to pick those up.
There are several desktop images but various issues reported from no display output, to only 1080p supported. To this image or that one working.
Important note, the later images require an updated to uboot and SPL, either with the bootrom or a serial connection.
It's a mess at the moment!
> It's a mess at the moment!
from my cursory testing it seems gui performance is much better than hifive unmatched (window manager, apps, web browser)
[edit] add geekbench
https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/17159543?baseli...
I believe by the standard boot process, opensbi would jump into uefi instead of u-boot.
SiFive does provide docs for the core complex (processors, cache, irq controller, etc), but that doesn't cover any SoC-specific peripherals.
We have been spoiled with Raspberry Pi the past few years prior to the shortages. I wish another vendor could get close to Pi's position to give more competition in terms of support and documentation.
This board has so much going for it. The native M.2 is a highly desireable feature. The only knock is the lack of wifi/bluetooth which can at least be solved with a dongle.
Yeah, but with an OS and MMU you don't get to just write to a port or other registers. The plumbing has to be in place.
I just got an Edge 2. Damn so much faster than my pi4. The downside is I think it’s hard/impossible to get an OS on it other than the ones they provide. ubuntu/android.
The SoC docs indicate: • 512 × 32-bit (2 KB) of OTP for key data on-die storage
But, that sounds like it's for the likes of secureboot.
If you just want some kind of trusted key storage/signing inside a secure enclave style design, to keep things secure from the OS/hypervisor, something like Keystone may be more your speed. It largely just re-uses the existing M-mode privilege level to enforce separation from the OS and userspace stack. It isn't 1-to-1 with Worldguard, but it's a start, and in theory you can "just" patch the SBI implementation to support it: http://docs.keystone-enclave.org/en/latest/Getting-Started/H...
Anything implemented today is probably going to be missing some key features of a complete stack, but the parts are all mostly there, and still moving.
Just go here and buy one instead: https://www.waveshare.com/visionfive2.htm?sku=23875
Most projects turned out ARM based after I bought it.
The site is not working, any price of this board? What's its market, e.g. ip camera? I'm still interested in lower cost ready to go risc-v boards.
Please let me know if you’re interested in selling me yours.
the fan on unmatched was screaming loud, i bought a quiet one and it worked well.
BUT the GPU is apparently better which would make this THE SBC.
I will test my 3D MMO engine and give exactly what is what once I receive mine, should be a couple of days.
The Raspberry GPU has a serious cache problem, it can't render a triangle at 60FPS in 1080p!!!
But 100 non-instanced animated characters (each with a unique weapon in hand) at 60FPS and low res (800x600).
Jetson (1/2 Nintendo Switch GPU) does 300 at 60 FPS in 1080p.
If the Visionfive 2 is either:
- 100+ at 60 FPS and 1080p
- 200+ at 60 FPS and 800x600
More like bad than mad.
This SoC is far more efficient, using just 4.4w on full load and achieving some 80% of rpi4's cpu performance at a much lower power, with no need for a heatsink.
https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/17159543?baseli...
Of course, there's a lot of software factors holding it back, such as quality or lack of drivers.
Benchmarks will be worth re-running in a few months, once some level of ecosystem is in place.
if so, i wonder how much that contributes to the difference...?
This is why so much hardware ends up in landfills. No thanks to undocumented junk.
https://www.sifive.com/cores/u74-mc
Unfortunately there appears to be no detailed documentation at all (unless you count a pile of Linux and bootloader patches, which I don't) for the peripherals, etc, outside of the core complex on the SoC:
This is what drives me crazy. Vendor claims "open source" which means an outdated linux image and the source code is wrapped up inside of a megalith build monstrosity like penguintronix or yocto. Utter junk these things are.
Curious: Is there a "Ferrari" general RISC-V ISA shorthand or CPU implementation with more extensions including Q B V K H & S ?
Freebsd boots, but that's it.
Of course, as this board is the first large production run, decent spec'd and reasonably compliant <$100 RISC-V SBC, this is expected to improve quickly as they reach developers and quickstart the ecosystem. That's the true intent of this board.
This is an order of magnitude more boards than accumulated RISC-V development boards distributed to date.
- Yocto Linux BSP
- Buildroot Linux BSP
- Embedded Linux from Siemens Embedded
- FreeBSD (coming soon)
https://www.microchip.com/en-us/products/fpgas-and-plds/syst...
I've looked at the board, and don't see the appeal in price, for only mediocre CPU-parts, not enough RAM, altough good enough I/O-options. Makes no sense if you don't want to meddle with FPGAs, and just look for a fast SBC with Risc-V.
To me, at least.
As RVA22 is not done (although almost there), we can't know whether it's compliant, but we will once it is. Expectation is yes.
Otherwise, most stuff out there will be RVA20 compliant once that's ratified, as that reflects what was already common back in chips designed in 2020, what most have been calling RV64GC.
Can you do regular Linux without S?
If your only sell is open hardware, I'm going to wait until the hardware is open to waste my time with it.