7 ms·
RISC-V SBC VisionFive 2 Officially Shipped
- PaulHoule 4y agoI am waiting to get mine.
- sylware 4y ago[flagged]
- kfihihc 4y agoSDK：https://github.com/starfive-tech/VisionFive2 https://github.com/starfive-tech/VisionFive2 Docs: https://doc-en.rvspace.org/Doc_Center/visionfive_2.html https://doc-en.rvspace.org/Doc_Center/visionfive_2.html
- progbits 4y agoLooks pretty good opensource-wise, right? Some linux fork with ton of patches but hopefully most of that will get upstreamed, and except that I found no weird blobs or proprietary crap.
- kfihihc 4y agoI think it will push to upstream ASAP.
- simcop2387 4y agoI haven't looked at the v2 but they seemed to be doing an alright job at getting things upstreamed with the v1. the only thing i remember seeing that wasn't very good in that regard was the neural net stuff that they had and that seemed more from just issues getting the hardware working than any nda or lack of desire to do it. I'd hope that the v2 is similarly worked through even if it needs some non-upstream patches at the start just because it's new hardware and it takes time.
- geerlingguy 4y agoIt seems like many SoCs (also in ARM space) advertise '2 TOPS' or however many TOPS neural processors integrated in the silicon... but the actual number of SoCs where those coprocessors can be used in Linux seems to be very low.
- simcop2387 4y agoyea it's a shame that it seems to be the normal state of things still. Based on the fact that so many of them have the exact same specs I think it's probably all the same (or only a few) vendors that make that part of the silicon/IP and everyone is just copying it without ever planning much around the support.
- swetland 4y agoStill no sign of an actual Technical Reference Manual or any other detailed documentation on the SoC (registers, peripherals, etc). A big pile of Linux patches, while better than nothing, is a poor substitute for actual documentation. SiFive does provide docs for the core complex (processors, cache, irq controller, etc), but that doesn't cover any SoC-specific peripherals.
- progbits 4y agoAgreed. But I feel like that is still a step ahead of RPi where you get random firmware blobs for the GPU without which it won't even boot.
- swetland 4y agoIt's definitely nicer to have source than a bunch of opaque binaries. (Is there source for the full boot path? Sounds like they have patches for OpenSBI and u-boot -- didn't see if there was source or docs for the on-die boot rom.) I just find the "all you need is Linux patches" approach annoying. There are BSD variants and little experimental and homebrew OSes out there that would be fun to run on a capable RISC-V SBC and even if you are using Linux it's still nice to have some documentation to refer to beyond whatever the silicon vendor implemented in various driver patches.
- _joel 4y agoExplaining Computers "StarFive VisionFive 2 RISC-V SBC review, including a demo of an engineering release of Debian, and of Python GPIO control" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykKnc86UtXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykKnc86UtXg
- geerlingguy 4y agoIt's sad how 'being able to actually use GPIO pins in software' is an achievement for an SBC. But I do applaud StarFive for actually seeming to throw some support behind their boards. 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.
- phkahler 4y ago>> it's sad how 'being able to actually use GPIO pins in software' is an achievement for an SBC 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.
- mikerg87 4y agoWe should remind ourselves that Raspberry Pis are in abundance, just not in the hobbyist channel. Current situation is not unlike the graphics card shortage when crypto miners were on garaunteed purchase contracts 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.
- somethingwitty1 4y agoThe no-wifi seems to just be the kickstarter. When I ordered mine a little while back, they had an option for wifi (extra $8-$10, as I recall). I haven't received it yet...so not sure if it actually does.
- snvzz 4y ago
- sargun 4y agoDoes anyone know if this SBC contains RISC-V Worldguard capabilities (https://www.sifive.com/technology/shield-soc-security https://www.sifive.com/technology/shield-soc-security)? I've been looking for a RISC-V SBC with a way to protect asymmetric keys. The new ESP32 has a dedicated key storage. 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.
- aseipp 4y agoNo, and there aren't any (public) cores deployed with Worldguard support that I'm aware of, at least none with user-controllable software, nor am I aware of any alternative implementations to Worldguard e.g. FPGA designs for prototyping. Seems like a fairly involved product. 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/How-Keystone-Works/index.html 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.
- psychphysic 4y agoI received mine weeks ago. 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!
- andrekandre 4y ago> It's a mess at the moment! yea, thats for sure, but i think a lot of promise too... 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?baseline=11161179 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/17159543?baseli...
- fathyb 4y ago> 1 Processor, 1 Core, 4 Threads Any idea why StarFive went with this choice for an SBC? I remember POWER7 also having 4 SMT, but it felt right for a superscalar multi-core CPU.
- photonbeam 4y agoIt has 4 cores with 1 thread each, rather than 1 core with 4 thread
- rwmj 4y agoThe link in the GP comment is wrong - both SoCs have 4 cores, each with a single thread. The reason why this SoC is faster than HiFive Unmatched seems to be down to architectural improvements.
- bhouston 4y agoAny performance comparisons with Raspberry Pi boards? How does this RISC-V CPU stack up against them?
- pmw 4y agoNot great; VisionFive appears to be significantly less performant. https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/17159543?baseline=15878552 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/17159543?baseli...
- viraptor 4y agoWe're still in the early days of risc-v availability. Arm has been widely deployed and the compilers optimised by both individuals and companies. I expect this comparison to look better in a year (not better than rpi4, just a smaller gap)
- CUViper 4y agoThere are a few where it does win though -- I wonder what characteristics favor VisionFive in those?
- andrekandre 4y agoafaict rbpi cpu has vector instructions? if so, i wonder how much that contributes to the difference...?
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agoa lot.
- snvzz 4y agoFortunately, at least for video codecs, there's a hardware acceleration block, and it is significantly stronger than the one rpi4's SoC has. Unfortunately, there's no drivers in the current images, and it'll take time to have proper open drivers and integration with common APIs such as vdpau.
- davidlt 4y agoUpstreasming status: https://rvspace.org/en/new-page/JH7110_Upstream_Plan https://rvspace.org/en/new-page/JH7110_Upstream_Plan 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.
- Klasiaster 4y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20230111211739/https://rvspace.org/en/new-page/JH7110_Upstream_Plan https://web.archive.org/web/20230111211739/https://rvspace.o...
- kfihihc 4y agoNew: https://rvspace.org/en/project/JH7110_Upstream_Plan https://rvspace.org/en/project/JH7110_Upstream_Plan
- snvzz 4y agoTheir date format not being the standard yyyy-mm-dd gets on my nerves.
- bullen 4y agoHN is tanking the RVSpace forum too. Just go here and buy one instead: https://www.waveshare.com/visionfive2.htm?sku=23875 https://www.waveshare.com/visionfive2.htm?sku=23875
- rahen 4y agoHow well are Linux and the BSDs supported?
- sacnoradhq 4y agoNot this board, but a $$ RISC-V from Xilinx's PolarFire does: - Yocto Linux BSP - Buildroot Linux BSP - Embedded Linux from Siemens Embedded - FreeBSD (coming soon) https://www.microchip.com/en-us/products/fpgas-and-plds/system-on-chip-fpgas/polarfire-soc-fpgas/get-started https://www.microchip.com/en-us/products/fpgas-and-plds/syst...
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoPolarfire FPGAs are not Xilinx! Which means you can't use things like https://f4pga.readthedocs.io https://f4pga.readthedocs.io ATM, or tools from Xilinx. Instead being chained to whichever proprietary stuff Microchip decides to deliver for dealing with the FPGA-part. 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.
- sacnoradhq 4y agoI meant MicroChip. Take a chill pill.
- snvzz 4y agoLinux works somewhat, with some duct taped drivers. 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.
- rahen 4y ago
- UltraViolence 4y agoDon't buy from this company. They can't even keep their website up from the strain of a few HN readers.
- synergy20 4y agoI have a sifive "unmatched" board sitting here collecting dust, cost me $700 then. 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.
- m00x 4y agoAny reason why it's collecting dust? I have a few RISC-V boards and I haven't had any issues with them other than having to compile almost everything from source.
- synergy20 4y agomainly because my projects are now all arm the fan on unmatched was screaming loud, i bought a quiet one and it worked well.
- gurjeet 4y agoI’m looking to buy these boards; recently I bought one on eBay. I plan on using them to add to FOSS projects’ buildfarms. The first one I got from eBay is now running Postgres buildfarm. Please let me know if you’re interested in selling me yours.
- MisterTea 4y agoWhere is the CPU hardware manual that tells me the CPU's memory map and registers? This is why so much hardware ends up in landfills. No thanks to undocumented junk.
- swetland 4y agoThe CPU itself (Core Complex, including cache, irq controller, etc) is documented by SiFive: https://www.sifive.com/cores/u74-mc 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: https://doc-en.rvspace.org/Doc_Center/jh7110.html https://doc-en.rvspace.org/Doc_Center/jh7110.html
- MisterTea 4y ago> unless you count a pile of Linux and bootloader patches, which I don't 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.
- jacooper 4y agoGood luck using it with docker, many images don't support ARM, let alone RISC-V
- sacnoradhq 4y ago~ 10% $ of Xilinx demo boards. Curious: Is there a "Ferrari" general RISC-V ISA shorthand or CPU implementation with more extensions including Q B V K H & S ?
- mouse_ 4y agoImagination Technologies GPU = no thanks If your only sell is open hardware, I'm going to wait until the hardware is open to waste my time with it.
- snvzz 4y agoDon't let your out of date[0] knowledge of imatech hold you back. 0. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Open-Source-PowerVR-Vulkan https://www.phoronix.com/news/Open-Source-PowerVR-Vulkan
- moloch-hai 4y agoDo we know what instruction-set profile it implements? Any?
- zu2_ 4y ago$ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 hart : 2 isa : rv64imafdc mmu : sv39 uarch : sifive,u74-mc
- moloch-hai 4y agoAny clue on Zbb? Zk* and Zbk*? Can you do regular Linux without S?
- snvzz 4y agoI understand it's RV64GCB + a few Z extensions. 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.
- moloch-hai 4y agoThank you. Guessing the Z extensions are AES operations? Supervisor ops?
- snvzz 4y agoThe cores are SiFive U74-MC, the version is, I believe, 21G1. These are documented. But that design is configurable. We know B extension (optional) is enabled. I have no idea about every other setting this core can be synthesized with.
- snvzz 4y agoUpdate: B extension is apparently not actually enabled. Alas.