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   Zygmunt Krynicki (zygoon@fosstodon.org)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 12:26:46 JST Zygmunt Krynicki

   I'm contemplating getting a #RISCV board for use at home. I ruled out the enterprise systems that are several thousand USD/EUR, as I plan to only use it for hobby capacity. Is there anything that is there to avoid? I recently learned that the SiFive boards have somewhat terrible memory performance, making them painfully slow for real world use. Any advice?

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 16:36:08 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Thorwegian ❄️

     @thor @zygoon I don't see the contradiction. There's hopefully a space between "horrible memory performance" and "thousands of Euros".

     Or maybe there isn't, but either way asking is how one finds out.

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     Thorwegian ❄️ (thor@berserker.town)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 16:36:10 JST Thorwegian ❄️

     in reply to

     @zygoon You can't say you're a hobbyist, yet at the same time demand the opposite.

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     Thorwegian ❄️ (thor@berserker.town)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 16:36:11 JST Thorwegian ❄️

     in reply to

     @zygoon I have terrible memory performance, making me terribly slow for real-world use.

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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 16:36:18 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Thorwegian ❄️
     @thor That question was answered in @zygoon 's original request for information, and I obviously meant that hopefully there would be a space with something in it, rather than a gaping chasm between too expensive and too lacking.
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     Thorwegian ❄️ (thor@berserker.town)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 16:36:19 JST Thorwegian ❄️

     in reply to

     • clacke

     @clacke @zygoon Well, if there is a space, are you prepared to walk across it?

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Tuesday, 20-Feb-2024 16:36:20 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Thorwegian ❄️
     @thor Someone has done preliminary research and is asking is there something I should keep in mind, like this thing I already heard of, and your answer is basically "NO, don't bother, get out".
   • Embed this notice
     Zygmunt Krynicki (zygoon@fosstodon.org)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:26:43 JST Zygmunt Krynicki

     in reply to

     • Stevez

     @theron29 as much as I like the fact that tiny boards _can_ run linux desktop, I'm much more interested in headless systems at present.

     Coincidentally, I ran a Windows XP virtual machine with 256MB of ram and one CPU. The crazy speed at which everything ran on that system is a nice baseline to how slow our modern systems are. There's something lost, I think, in how we make software.

     clacke likes this.
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     Stevez (theron29@witter.cz)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:26:46 JST Stevez

     in reply to

     @zygoon Hmmmm, curious: GNOME Shell runs faster&smoother on LicheePi 4A than Xfce... 🤔

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     Stevez (theron29@witter.cz)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:26:47 JST Stevez

     in reply to

     @zygoon So, I stepped over my lazyness and found this (very good note) within the documentation for their official Linux build (based on Debian 12):

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   • Embed this notice
     Stevez (theron29@witter.cz)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:26:48 JST Stevez

     in reply to

     @zygoon Here are some interesting benchmarks...

     I believe it should be achievable to have a compiler patched with/for vector 0.7.* optimizations and build the whole system just for Lichee with these optimizations....
     (But it is a) a theory and b) my wishful thinking 😇 )

     https://github.com/camel-cdr/rvv-bench

   • Embed this notice
     Zygmunt Krynicki (zygoon@fosstodon.org)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:26:49 JST Zygmunt Krynicki

     in reply to

     • Stevez

     @theron29 @zygoon is that also significant for integer operations?

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     Stevez (theron29@witter.cz)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:26:50 JST Stevez

     in reply to

     @zygoon
     A "problem" with >current< CPUs support of RV Vector spec is that majority of today's CPU have no Vector support or spec 0.7 support (not official).

     Vecctor spec v1.0 was not finalized several years ago, when RV CPUs manufacturers decided not to wait any longer and designed and produced current CPU generation -> with either no or v0.7.* spec support. There is minimal to no compiler support for these optimizations, so this has potentially big impact on performance.

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     Stevez (theron29@witter.cz)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:26:51 JST Stevez

     in reply to

     @zygoon LicheePi 4A uses TH1520 CPU (4 cores @1,9Ghz, 4/8/16GB RAM + integrated eMMC storage, Vector 0.7.1 spec support, NPU, is currently mainly on kernel 5.10).

     It is (now) "Not great, not terrible". With new kernels coming (6.5-6.8) and thus drivers (OpenGL/hw accel/AES accel etc..) and other things coming later this year, it will become quite ok as light desktop/light home server backend.

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     Stevez (theron29@witter.cz)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:26:53 JST Stevez

     in reply to

     @zygoon Questions is: What is your idea behind buying RISC-V machine? A cheap potato for tests? Then VisionFive 2 is ok (or even cheaper slower boards). If you want something with some power (i.e. at least Rpi4B), maybe for a light desktop/home light srv backend)? LicheePi 4A is best choice right now (got one last week).

     What to have in mind:
     - Right now (emphasis on >now<) the spport for new kernels/drivers/hw accels etc. is taking off.
     - (No) Support of RISC Vector instructions (0.7 vs 1.0)

     clacke likes this.
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     Howard Chu @ Symas (hyc@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:27:03 JST Howard Chu @ Symas

     in reply to

     • Stevez

     @theron29 @zygoon it's a peripheral device, not implemented as an instruction set extension. Haven't seen any docs on how to call it either.

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     Howard Chu @ Symas (hyc@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:27:05 JST Howard Chu @ Symas

     in reply to

     • Stevez

     @theron29 @zygoon Thead have their own gcc toolchain patched to support v0.7 vector extensions.

     My Lichee Pi works pretty well, but the chip lacks hardware AES instruction set, which makes it less interesting to me.

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     Stevez (theron29@witter.cz)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:27:05 JST Stevez

     in reply to

     • Howard Chu @ Symas

     @hyc @zygoon I wonder what this subsystem is then...

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   • Embed this notice
     Stevez (theron29@witter.cz)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:27:06 JST Stevez

     in reply to

     @zygoon I believe a discussion is still ongoing about Vector 0.7.* vs 1.0 compiler support (I did not have time to dig deeper into this yet so I'm unsure about the current state, but general notion is NOT to support v0.7.* -> start digging here https://github.com/brucehoult/riscv-gnu-toolchain).

     If you are ok with trying RV kernel builds etc, LicheePi is very good start now.

     On the other hand probably a new gen of devices with rvv1.0 CPUs will get released later this year, so it might be ok to wait for a little while 🙂

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     Zygmunt Krynicki (zygoon@fosstodon.org)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 19:27:12 JST Zygmunt Krynicki

     in reply to

     • Stevez

     @theron29 @zygoon I have a home test lab that runs and builds various things for me. I and not looking for a desktop. My ideal board has 8GB+ of memory and is not crippled by hardware design decisions or bugs. Something that can run Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu.

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     Valentin David (valentin@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 22:21:47 JST Valentin David

     in reply to

     @zygoon I have a Sifive Unmatched and a MilkV Pioneer. Do not get an Unmatched if you expect to use it as a desktop. It is a potato and is very noisy. The Pioneer seems fine so far. But I use it mostly for development. And that is OK. Did not take the time to get a browser to run on it yet (latest WebKit is broken on risc v). So it is hard to say. But the price... Also consider that there is no CPU yet available that does full kvm. So if you plan to run VMs, you have to wait a bit.

     clacke likes this.
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     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Saturday, 24-Feb-2024 22:21:49 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • Valentin David
     @Valentin @zygoon The KVM support for RISC-V, does it only run in emulators so far?