Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by octoberfranklin 1573 days ago
I would love to believe in this, but in practice RISC-V has only gained traction in 32-bit microcontrollers, from companies that simply don't want to pay for an ARM license.

If there is a riscv64 server/workstation out there that I can buy, today, I would love to order one.
1 comments
pabs3 1573 days ago
SiFive are the closest to that.
link
octoberfranklin 1573 days ago
Which is what is so depressing.

They're the "closest", but not remotely close.

link
pabs3 1572 days ago
They have more RAM than my current desktop, so probably they are good enough for many people :)
link
octoberfranklin 1572 days ago
Can you be more specific? Like which model you mean?

AFAICT all the SiFive products that are available to purchase and have workstation-ish amounts of RAM require boot blobs. I would be happy to be wrong about this.

https://forums.sifive.com/t/remaining-agency-issues-to-be-so...

Apparently there was a very limited run of dev boards for which no blobs are needed, and then they promptly discontinued that product and replaced it with a (confusingly-similarly-named) blobbified product that you can pre-order via mouser (listed as "backordered, no ETA"). This product is already marked EOL which is not encouraging.

link
pabs3 1572 days ago
I was just referring to their latest dev boards, which people have put in standard mini-ITX compatible cases, plugged in GPUs and used as workstations. Zero idea what blobs this requires. For eg:

https://drewdevault.com/2022/01/15/2022-01-15-The-RISC-V-exp...

link
octoberfranklin 1572 days ago
> Today I’m writing this on the HiFive Unmatched

That board's firmware is not open-source at all. See the link in my previous comment.

> Zero idea what blobs this requires.

You've stumbled into the wrong thread, my friend. This thread is about open-source firmware. The stuff you're hyping does not deliver that.

link