On Sun, 15 Mar 2020 17:20:51 -0400
Hendrik Boom <hendrik@???> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 01:20:24PM -0700, tom wrote:
> >
> > But this may be a stop-gap if you /really/ need to get an X86
> > machine you already have running. My advice is to stop buying X86
> > in the future and invest in other arches.
>
>
> Like what the libre-risv / libre-soc project is working on
> ( currently at https://libre-riscv.org ). But that won't be ready
> for a while.
>
> Also https://www.crowdsupply.com/libre-risc-v/m-class
>
> They started planning on a RISC-V processor, but the seem to be
> moving to a POWER processor for technical licencing reasons.
>
> -- hendrik
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> Dng@???
> https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng

I've actually used one of the first RISCV ASIC cpus. The Sifive Hifive.
It ran Debian just fine and I even connected it to a network and played
some multiplayer video games on my laptop vs the RISCV machine clocked
at 1Ghz. Compilers fly on RISCV. I do think RISCV is the future,
however there's a big problem with RISCV and it's a mixture of
political and technical problems. The biggest technical problem is the
lack of ASIC northbridge, or rather something to interface the CPU to
an PCIE bus. Currently the best thing available you can get is an FPGA
and it is a severe bandwidth bottleneck. It's also super expensive
getting an FPGA that beefy enough. I don't see RISCV going anywhere
until this is solved except microcontroller applications.

The second problem is patents that prevent RISCV developers from
implementing a lot of popular specs and standards. Just as an example
look at the licensing cost of implementing HDMI vs DisplayPort.

At least that is how I understand the situation to be, but there are
probably more knowledgeable RISCV experts than me

--
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\ they'll find us! They'll find us!"      /
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