Will RISC-V end up with the same (or even worse) platform fragmentation as ARM? Because of absence of any common platform standard we have phones that are only good for landfill once their support lifetime is up, drivers never getting upstreamed to Linux kernel (or upstreaming not even possible due to completely quixotic platforms and boot protocols each manufacturer creates). RISC-V allows even higher fragmentation in the portions of instruction sets each CPU supports, e.g. one manufacturer might decide MUL/DIV are not needed for their CPU etc. ("M" extension).
While its current performance is not competitive, there are currently interesting options. I got the orange pi riscv version, mainly to test riscv while it's slow compared to other arm socs, it's still better than I expected. There are even risc v TPUs now.
i've been hearing about arm computer for almost twenty years and only just recently general-purpose decently-priced arm laptops have been released (qualcomm laptops, the macbook neo).
and arm desktop are still not a thing, in practice.
The desktop market is not the only product space anymore.
Apple has had brilliant success with its ARM processors, proving that ARM is more than capable. Before Apple's switch, Chromebooks had been using ARM since 2011.
Android is the dominant operating system in mobile and most Android devices use the ARM platform. Many of these devices have desktop capability -- they are a viable convergence platform.
I think the Surface Laptops (2018?) count, and arguably the previous models (2012+) sorta-kinda count (tablet + keyboard).
Side note: It's kinda funny to me that "the keyboard is detachable, the screen is glass and you can touch/write on it" makes it "lesser" than a laptop rather than being an upgrade.
But yeah, definitely happy to see more in this space. Now we just need e-Paper laptops to take off as well :)
I stopped listening to what Canonical says. They often get involved in things and disturb the ecosystem then abandon stuff or dig a "not invented here" hole.
Unity, Bazaar, Mir, Upstart, Snap, etc.
All of them had existing well established projects they attempted to uproot for no purpose other than Canonical wanted more control but they can't actually operate or maintain that control.
Not sure on the timelines, but snap, upstart and Mir were all attempts at evolving Linux ecosystem that lost to RedHat-backed systems. Unity was legit abandoned, and bazaar... Not sure what they were trying to solve there with git and forges already existing.
Not my area of expertise but what exactly is the difference between RISC-V and Power PC? Didn't Power-PC get a good run in the 90s and 2000s? Just wondering why there's renewed interest in RISC-like architectures when industry already had a good exploration of that area.
It is Chinese companies looking for ARM alternative that push this otherwise mediocre ISA.
It is possible that ARM based CPUs will start eating x86 market slowly. See snapdragon X2 and upcoming Nvidia CPU. Maybe in 10 years new computers will be ARM based and a lot of IoT will run on risc-5.
x86_64 machines are RISC under the hood and have been for ages, I believe; microcode is translating your x64 instructions to risc instructions that run on the real CPU, or something akin to that. RISC never died, CISC did, but is still presented as the front-facing ISA because of compatibility.
Ah, PowerPC. For a RISC processor it surely had a lot of instructions, most of them quite peculiar. But hey, it had fixed-length instruction encoding and couldn't address memory in instructions other than "explicit memory load/store", so it was RISC, right?
This is true, but only for the bigger players. The nature of hardware still fundamentally favors scale and centralization. Every hyper-scalar eventually gets to a size that developing in-house CPU talent is just straight up better (Qcom and Ventana + Nuvia, Meta and Rivos, Google's been building their own team, Nvidia and Vera-Rubin, God help Microsoft though). This does not bode well for RISC-V companies, who are just being used as a stepping stone. See Anthropic, who does currently license but is rumored to develop their own in-house talent [1].
> Extensibility powers technology innovation
>> While this flexibility could cause problems for the software ecosystem...
"While" is doing some incredible heavy lifting. It is not enough to be able to run Ubuntu, as may be sufficient for embedded applications, but to also be fast. Thusly, there are many hardcoded software optimizations just for a CPU, let alone ARM or x86. For RISC-V? Good luck coding up every permutation of an extension that exists, and even if it's lumped as RVA23, good luck parsing through 100 different "performance optimization manuals" from 100 different companies.
> How mature is the software ecosystem?
10 years ago, when RISC-V was invented, the founders said 20 years. 10 years later, I say 30 years.
The nature of hardware as well, is that the competition (ARM) is not stationary as well. The reason for ARM's dominance now is the failure of Intel, and the strong-arming of Apple.
I have worked in and on RISC-V chips for a number of years, and while I am still a believer that it is the theoretical end state, my estimates just feel like they're getting longer and longer.
Your submission was sent successfully! Close
Thank you for contacting us. A member of our team will be in touch shortly. Close
You have successfully unsubscribed! Close
Thank you for signing up for our newsletter!
In these regular emails you will find the latest updates about Ubuntu
and upcoming events where you can meet our team. Close
Your preferences have been successfully updated. Close notification
Please try again or file a bug report. Close
There's an email signup box on the right side on desktop, or bottom of the page on mobile. Maybe you somehow managed to hit it, or see it during some component update.
Meanwhile, wouldn't China be more heavily invested in Longsoon?
i've been hearing about arm computer for almost twenty years and only just recently general-purpose decently-priced arm laptops have been released (qualcomm laptops, the macbook neo).
and arm desktop are still not a thing, in practice.
The desktop market is not the only product space anymore.
Apple has had brilliant success with its ARM processors, proving that ARM is more than capable. Before Apple's switch, Chromebooks had been using ARM since 2011.
Android is the dominant operating system in mobile and most Android devices use the ARM platform. Many of these devices have desktop capability -- they are a viable convergence platform.
Side note: It's kinda funny to me that "the keyboard is detachable, the screen is glass and you can touch/write on it" makes it "lesser" than a laptop rather than being an upgrade.
But yeah, definitely happy to see more in this space. Now we just need e-Paper laptops to take off as well :)
https://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Computers/A500.h...
Unity, Bazaar, Mir, Upstart, Snap, etc.
All of them had existing well established projects they attempted to uproot for no purpose other than Canonical wanted more control but they can't actually operate or maintain that control.
It is possible that ARM based CPUs will start eating x86 market slowly. See snapdragon X2 and upcoming Nvidia CPU. Maybe in 10 years new computers will be ARM based and a lot of IoT will run on risc-5.
The V in RISC-V represents iteration of the ISA, over the last 46 years, most of which occurred in the US, mainly at Berkeley.
This is true, but only for the bigger players. The nature of hardware still fundamentally favors scale and centralization. Every hyper-scalar eventually gets to a size that developing in-house CPU talent is just straight up better (Qcom and Ventana + Nuvia, Meta and Rivos, Google's been building their own team, Nvidia and Vera-Rubin, God help Microsoft though). This does not bode well for RISC-V companies, who are just being used as a stepping stone. See Anthropic, who does currently license but is rumored to develop their own in-house talent [1].
> Extensibility powers technology innovation
>> While this flexibility could cause problems for the software ecosystem...
"While" is doing some incredible heavy lifting. It is not enough to be able to run Ubuntu, as may be sufficient for embedded applications, but to also be fast. Thusly, there are many hardcoded software optimizations just for a CPU, let alone ARM or x86. For RISC-V? Good luck coding up every permutation of an extension that exists, and even if it's lumped as RVA23, good luck parsing through 100 different "performance optimization manuals" from 100 different companies.
> How mature is the software ecosystem?
10 years ago, when RISC-V was invented, the founders said 20 years. 10 years later, I say 30 years.
The nature of hardware as well, is that the competition (ARM) is not stationary as well. The reason for ARM's dominance now is the failure of Intel, and the strong-arming of Apple.
I have worked in and on RISC-V chips for a number of years, and while I am still a believer that it is the theoretical end state, my estimates just feel like they're getting longer and longer.
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/business/anthropic-weighs-building-i...