RISC-V Week: 7 days only using RISC-V computers
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- Can RISC-V be used for all computing activities for a whole week? In this video I try to use only RISC-V hardware for 7 days . . .
Note that since I made this video, Sipeed have got the Kdenlive video editor working, as I cover in this follow-up video: • RISC-V Video Editing &...
The Lichee Pi 4A Wiki is here:
wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/l...
And the VisionFive 2 Debian June 2023 Wiki is here:
rvspace.org/en/project/Vision...
My previous review of the Sipeed Licheed Pi 4A is here:
• Lichee Pi 4A: Serious ...
And of the StarFive VisionFive 2 is here:
• VisionFive 2: RISC-V Q...
My 2023 RISC-V Update is also here:
• RISC-V 2023 Update: Fr...
And all of my RISC-V reviews and other videos are in this playlist:
• Explaining RISC-V: An ...
And I have a video about online security and hardware keys (Yubikeys) here:
• Cyber Security: Protec...
For additional ExplainingComputers videos and other content, you can learn about becoming a channel member here:
/ @explainingcomputers
More videos on computing and related topics can be found at:
/ @explainingcomputers
You may also like my ExplainingTheFuture channel at: / @explainingthefuture
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:14 The RISC Five (RISC-V hardware)
04:11 Streaming & VisionFive 2
09:18 Video Production
13:15 Apps & Gaming
15:44 Security
18:45 Performance (tests)
22:58 Conclusions
#RISC-V #Desktop #Linux #explainingcomputers - Věda a technologie
![The moment we stopped understanding AI [AlexNet]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UZDiGooFs54/mqdefault.jpg)
Hi all, a couple of things. Firstly, I was clearly wrong about GIMP Lava test being multi-threaded. My bad. Secondly, it is now possible (just over a day after this video posted) to run the Kdenlive video editing on the Lichee Pi 4A. Yes, we can now video edit on RISC-V hardware! I knew it would happen -- but not that fast. If you've interested, I've done a quick post over in the Community Tab for this channel, and will demosntrate in a video fairly soon.
And a simple matter of installing a library. The question here was why the library wasn't in the Kdenlive package dependencies to be installed automatically..
@@BruceHoult Probably because no other nutters are running kdenlive on a Risc-V ;-) But that's the Linux way... things get fixed when someone finds a fault.
hi im interested in risc-v for monero mining any chance you could try and mine some monero loves to know the hashrate these could be good for stacking and mining the coin thanks.
@@jediknight2350 shuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup
Look foward to it - love your videos :)
The real challenge is going flip-phone only, how will we stay in tune with the latest Twitter X dramas every half hour?
Greetings Jeff. And here's a thing -- that is my actual phone. :) I swapped my smartphone for a flip-phone (and a MiFi unit that I use with a tablet or laptop when I travel) in 2016. Some days I go 8+ hours without being online!
That's amazing! We can all use a bit more time separated from the Internet, it takes effort these days!
Also I think Arm having 32/64 bit for a while was helpful in getting many open source projects to convert from x86 + a separate arm build to "x86, x64, arm7, arm64" style builds, which makes adding on "riscv" to that list that much easier. Especially for things like Docker images (which is my major interest!)
I check Twitter/X weekly, sometimes less. I was actually banned from it for over a year. You learn to stop caring faster than you might expect.
What's Twitter/X 😂. Yeah, I am joking, but I visit Twitter perhaps once a month or so. Don't care for it.
I deleted my account earlier this year and never looked back. 😎
I do keep up with some X/Twitter/bird app drama whenever it hits the news.
Any hardware platform that gives us options beyond the monopolies is a winner with me. Looking forward to a RISC-V future.
Pluralizing monopoly is a bit like pluralizing "lone wolf"
@@timseguine2 very true, beyond the duopoly.
Forcing yourself to use Risc V computers for a week is a great way to show how far the tech has come and where it still needs some work. Great video. 👍
Bear in mind that until these two boards existed there was no reason to even bother to port this kind of desktop software to RSIC-V - there was simply nothing capable of running it that was in enough people's hands to be worth the effort. The VisionFive 2 has now been out for just over six months (I received mine in the first week of February, as did most other people who preordered in August 2022), and the non-beta version of the Lichee Pi 4A came out in July (I ordered mine on July 7 when orders opened and had it on July 22).
These boards are roughly in Pi 4 class, plus or minus. There will be boards coming next year in Rock 5 / Orange Pi 5 class, which is a big step up. For those with a lot more money to spend, there are also boards available for preorder right now, shipping soon, which have the same C910 CPU cores as the Lichee Pi 4A, but sixty four of them in the chip instead of four. And 128 GB RAM in 4 DIMMs on 4 memory controllers, 32 lanes of PCIe, things like that.
its great some things "work" but far from efficient or expedient yet , this is at a level of 286 or 386 ( in comparative relative viewing) great that it sorta works , but needs a LOT of refining to make it truly productive or efficient yet. Kudos to all the work that has gone into this research and encouragement to future research
@@hiredgun7186 no, they are around late Pentium 3 to Pentium M / Centrino, but with far better GPU than was ever on a machine like that. And of course massively smaller, cheaper, and lower energy use. They are something like 500 to 1000 times faster than a 286 or early 386. Per core, and they have four of them. There was also no GPU on 286 or 386 computers, every pixel was drawn by the CPU. These boards could run your 386 software in QEMU or others at least 10 times faster than any 386 that was ever made.
@@hiredgun7186286 and 386? That’s going way too far back. Those processors were 32-bit, single core and not anywhere near 1.5 GHz. What’s holding back SBC’s the most are the GPU’s and low power budgets.
tbh most desktop facing apps are architecture independent@@BruceHoult
The fact the desktop environment works at all shows that things are going well. The gnome desktop is built on top of hundreds of packages
Not just that, it has all the basic life tools. Other than the obvious "getting used to linux" difficulties, it's already doing basic daily tasks normal people need a computer for and a few more advanced jobs, the first board (the LP4A) I daresay is already grandma-ready after installation. Would be nice if these chips were generally faster though, but that's just a problem for the 1st generation of any SBC type.
I think it's important to keep in mind that any hardware "accelerated" graphics is unrelated to the ISA (RISC-V in this case) but rather whatever GPU the manufacturer of the board has decided to incorporate, and of course the display driver. Nevertheless, mature ISAs today took many years to improve. RISC-V is certainly maturing at a much faster rate :)
Why you need IBM System bus on RISC V, what you run on them ???
most RICS C systems are embattled only, no I/O needed !
uu make a gaming machine on it ? why that ????
It would certainly be interesting to revisit this test in 12 -18 months from now, and do a direct comparison.
@@wotzinator6282 I'd imagine that in 12-18 months there's a good chance of seeing both.
@@wotzinator6282Why not both?
@@wotzinator6282 I think that for me, I'd want to see better software optimisation, particularly around the graphics drivers - because ultimately its the ability to handle multimedia and some games well that allows it to metamorphose from a development board to a consumer one (not that I am unhappy messing around with dev boards).
To be fair, Linux on ARM has had a huge amount of investment and drive from Google because Android is ultimately a "Linux variant" whereas Linux on RISC V has not had that head start.
@@terrydaktyllus1320Google is working on Android for RISC-V. Should be ready in 2024.
That's not even a challenge, assuming the MILK-V Pioneer will be released at the end of this year. A 64 core RISC-V system that uses an AMD GFX-card.
I'm having to use a Raspberry Pi 400 on a semi-permanent basis until all my computers etc are taken out of storage, and it's a capable machine.... I can see RISC-V machines along the same vein as the Pi 400 in scope and design also being capable as you say in about 18 months time. We are living in a new mini-golden age of low power-consuming machines, and it's great -) Cheers Chris, thanks for your videos and your dedication.
Thanks for your support. :) The Pi 400 is indeed a capable machine.
what need, ATM machines you run, embattled systems ?
Why you see you need RISC now ?
Much more worked than I expected, seems to be about where the ARM SBC's were only a few years ago, and it seems that RISCV is progressing faster, very impressive 👍
Many governments around the world have an incentive to accelerate development, but this is truly astounding and nice to see. Hoping this will produce new software paradigms and OS's to go with it!.
Considering it is faster than a RPI4 it is already faster than most of the ARM SBC out there, the only exception being the RK3588 ones, thats really impressive considering RISC-V is just starting.
@@shivanSpSIt's super impressive. I could see the right combination of CPU, GPU, RAM, and software support rivaling the Celeron / Intel N-series boards we have seen in not a whole lot of time.
@@shivanSpS And this is before we have final, well-optimized software. :)
@@shivanSpS expect RK3588-class RISC-V boards mid 2024. They might not meet RK3588S prices, but full-on RK3588 boards aren't cheap and seem a realistic target.
An important video, and an eye opener. I've been informing myself about what's going on about RISC-V for a number of years now, but only very occasionally. I was able to see some progress here and there but would have been entirely unable to tell how RISC-V currently compares to the established competition - and would have tended to believe that it's very far behind. I certainly wouldn't have expected what I saw in this video and I have to say that I am very positively surprised!
I'm somewhat amazed that the Gnome desktop is used. Don't get me wrong, it's my favorite desktop. But, it's not known for being the best in using system resources. XFCE (used on the first board) is way more efficient. But nowadays, KDE Plasma is also very efficient on system resources, which would make it a better option than Gnome, IMHO.
But cool to see that RISC-V, although in development, is already usable. Very nice!
It is certainly an interesting choice given the resources it uses.
Always good to know what's on the bleeding edge of tech. Hopefully there's someone(s?) out there already working to improve the multimedia capabilities of RISC-V systems. Thanks for another great video Chris.
I am very excited about this open source processor since I watched the Linus video about it. And now they are in people's hands.
Outstanding video Chris. Getting through your week at a slower pace isn't always a bad thing. My internet is quite slow as I live in the countryside but it definitely makes you more patient. I'm amazed at how well the hardware/software worked for most of your tasks, even if a few things didn't. Early days and exciting times ahead for RISC-V 😁
Thanks for your commitment. Somehow your experience got me reminiscing about the pace of work using my Compaq Deskpro 386 three short decades ago (which, in all fairness, sped up considerably after my dear wife purchased a math co-processor for me).
Anyone remember when a 733mhz pentium 3 could load rich text documents faster than this?
It wasn't a faster cpu, but it sure ran faster software. I miss high performance/low overhead software.
Developers have gotten lazy and/or greedy for resources.
I remember that, I also remember 3 minute boot up times and OS crashes on the regular.
He should’ve done it on a IBM Mainframe or server with an IBM Power Processor running AIX. RISC Processors from IBM are really powerful. Why would you use such a low powered device as shown in the video.
@@ernestoditerribile Why is he using it, what is the need?
Always weird content here !
@@ernestoditerribile because the Lichee Pi 4A (and BeagleBoard Ahead with the same SoC) is the fastest RISC-V computer on sale as at August 2023. It's likely to hold that title no more than two to three months, but it will probably remain the fastest RISC-V under $200 for 6-12 months until the VisionFive 3 (presumably) with JH8100 SoC comes out. The IBMs (and Talos) are not only a completely different ISA with completely different software, but also at least 20 times more expensive.
Great video as always, chris! Its really fascinating to see how open source ISA processors are getting more and more capable.
capable ? Why you need it ?
What systems u use ?
Blessed Sunday greetings all!
Thank you for this fine video sir! It looks like RISC-V has come a long way with much more to go but nice progress. An open alternative would be most welcome in today's closed off world. I do hope to get some time soon to start tinkering with these fine boards. Looking forward to the availability of that LP4A cluster board to run alongside my Pi3B cluster and my soon to be up and running Pi4 cluster.
But now that's it for another comment and I hope to talk to you all again, very soon! (Sorry for the plagiarism. It just works so well.)
I can imagine you running the cluster board! :) That could be a lot of parallel RISC-V processing.
Great video. Loving RISC-V. We need to see the bloopers/behind the scenes frustrations!
They would probably in bash ;-)
Very nicely done, Dr. Barnatt. In a previous century you would probably have been our bravest and most reliable wilderness scout, leading us through the unknown dangers and hostile forces toward safety in our wonderful new homes. I find it highly admirable, sir, that (mixing my metaphors) for our sake, and to maintain your leadership credibility, you are willing to eat your own dogfood for an entire week. As you so honestly advised us, it is clearly too early for embarking on the RISC-V journey for most of us pilgrims, but the future looks very bright now and we will soon be able to uncircle our wagons and proceed to our destiny. Thank you, sir!
Christopher is living the computer life I want.
10/10 video!
I was expecting him to rock an old amber monitor from 1988
Really well done. I can really imagine the hours behind the scenes getting things to work. Clearly not ready for mainstream use, but likely in a few years it will be. Thank you.
Dear Chris,
I am writing to express my sincere gratitude for your amazing video on using RISC-V for a week. I have learned so much from your informative and entertaining content, and I always look forward to your new uploads.
Your video has inspired me to try out RISC-V for myself and to see how it compares to other architectures. You have also helped me to understand the benefits and challenges of using RISC-V, such as its openness, modularity, efficiency, compatibility, and versatility.
You are a great teacher and a role model for me and many others who share your enthusiasm for technology. I appreciate your dedication, creativity, and generosity in sharing your experience and insights with us.
Thank you for making technology fun and accessible for everyone. You are the best!
Sincerely,
Rigo Robles
Thanks for your kind feedback, appreciated. :)
Which LLM was used to generate this comment do you think? The style suggests either Bing chat or chatgpt. If I had to guess I'd say Bing based on the way it groups adjectives in sets.
Chris, thanks for yet another excellent video. Since I am here, I will say that during this last week I was (yet again) looking through your videos to help figure something out. I was ( yet again) reminded of the breadth and depth of the topics covered. Well done and please keep it up!
Cheers!
Thank you for these different tests with hardware under RISC-V.
This is very promising !
Risc V is getting to be a viable solution for general computing - looking forward to more mature hardware and OS options!
voneschenbachmusic
Germans need it ? General Computing ?
This is not that, only Germans need it for general computing, Merkel boycott crap solutions you need ?
Im looking forward to seeing the day when we get risk v based routers and wifi access points, as well as thin clients.
I wouldn't mind building a nas with a risk v board when they are more widely available.
But seeing how far they have come gives me hope for the future.
I really enjoyed this episode, for you to be able to run on this hardware for a week without crippling issues shows just how much the architecture has evolved.
Very interesting…and important! to have open source architecture with good performance. Thanks for the review
Great update on the implementation of RISC-5 . Future looks interesting for this technology.
I own both of these single board computers and have a lot fun to see how it developes, something to note here considering nothing is really baked and optimized on RSIC-V yet even the open source driver for the Imagination GPU on those devices still needs a lot cooking even on ARM, will be fun to see what these can do when fully cooked.
I like your phrase -- it will indeed be good when everything is fully cooked. :)
I appreciate this video and it demonstrating that RISC-V is far more advanced then what people thought and that open source can also be applied to the hardware space
Computing is a combination of hardware and software so this is a good thing overall
Great video! Thank you for the great content
Really exciting perspectives for the future!
Thanks Christopher, it is very interesting as you made us used to expect from you! 👍👍👍
I had an Acorn A5000 RISC PC and loved using it but sold it off for a good price a few years ago. It is very interesting to see Single Board RISC PCs now coming along and look forward to see how these develop. Thanks for all your work Christopher and I am close to Nottingham so interesting to come across your work.
Great video! I don’t know much about RISC V so I’ve appreciated your coverage.
Thank you for investigating this new exciting architecture!
I'm most intrigued by the "race to the bottom" that's going to come. I want to see SBCs not just in the "you can play real media on this" space, but also the "look what I can do with a single button cell battery" space as well.
Emulation/FPGA hybridization intrigues me as well. It would be fascinating to see what hackers might be able to come up with in the future with RV being as open and accessible as it is. To think that the first ~30 years of video gaming could be relived on potentially a single highly optimized SBC with fair pricing is exciting. The MISTer has been a game changer, and imagining a community-driven design that doesn't rely on a hard-to-get board with tons of bloat like the DE-10 makes the future of emulation very bright.
Wow, that was brave, I don't think I could do it for a week without x86-64.
Definitely a lot of work put into this. Thank you and very well done.
Great video as always 😀
Greetings. It's a great experiment with RISC - V. The outlook seems promising for the open architecture.
Thank you for another interesting video. It will be fun to follow this over the next 2 to 3 years and see how it all progresses.
Thank you so much for your excellent presentations on the current status of SBCs and other related areas.. It helps me keep up to date as I watch each week.
Thanks for watchin. :)
Nice little exploration, thanks for that
I remember seeing your first video on RISC V boards and it's amazing how far they've come. It still has a long way to go, but This is really interesting. Great analysis and another great video, Chris.
impressive week to overcome.
Thanks for sharing your experience with all of ud 👍😀
Very enjoyable video. I look forward to the future of RISC-V computers.
Very exciting! Thank you for sharing,
Thankyou for all the great content!
Wonderful, informative video as always. Thanks
Thanks, great work as usual! :)
Thanks for your support.
Thanks for sharing Chris as it's been exciting seeing the new RISC-V SBCs progressing along nicely. The future is bright so please keep us updated with future videos as software continues to improve for these board's 🎉
Nice video Chris! Thanks for always sharing with us 💖👍😎JP
I love it when you do these, I learned so much from the earlier ones on Raspberry Pie computers.
I totally remembered the last installment! The raspberry pi one! Very cool to see another installment of this. EDIT:I mean the original pi week video from 7 yrs back. I haven't watched the 2nd newest installment yet 😢
I cannot believe that video was 7 years ago. How time flies!
It is pretty impressive how RISC-V has progressed. I was looking to the Horse Trail P550 board, but its looking to be vaporware. SBC's are nice, but I want a proper board with PCI-E, discrete GPU, and hopefully someday soon the death of device tree.
Thank you for updating us on RISC-V state.
It's good to see RISCV gaining traction faster and faster, you suffered so we don't have to ! And it played Startrek TOS your family album !!! lol !....cheers.
Go Linux, Go Go 🐧
Your SBC videos are addictive, Chris. Keep'em coming
Look promising. It has improved over the months. Hopefully as time goes by, things would work well.
So close to being totally functional…. Well done for lasting the week in risc-land.. great adventure
And yet so far. This reminds me the old joke about the year of the Linux desktop. Don't get me wrong, I use Linux daily but just can't see these boards (given the price and everything) replacing full fledged desktop PCs anytime soon.
what a week! GO FOR IT Mr. Barnatt!!
Definitely interesting to learn about this! Seems it's on it's way to becoming something good.
Chris thank you so much for pursuing the morphing of single board computers into desktop computers.
I will be looking forward to your next step in this process.
Keep up the good work.
This was a big insight. This technology has really advanced. Thanks for this experiment.
Thank you for supporting open source and taking painstaking efforts by using these hardware primarily.
Thanks a lot for sharing!
Nice to see this becoming more and more supported.
Only using RISC V sounds like a great way to appreciate time away from the computer!
This is very true. A week not using a mobile computing device was very relaxing.
Sorry, am I missing something here? Isn't a RISC V SBC still a computer?
@@terrydaktyllus1320yes, just like a diet soda is still a soda.
@@Jossandoval If you say so, though I was talking about computers, not fizzy drinks.
@@terrydaktyllus1320 They mean less computing.
That was more interesting than I expected. I do think they will improve a lot in the next couple of years.
Thanks Chris for an interesting video on Risc V, it's admirable how you managed to use both boards for a whole week! It'll be interesting to see how this matures over the next 12 to 18 months, hopefully a credible desktop replacement will appear. Another happy Sunday :)
Greetings Alan!
Great show. Very informative.
As always, highly interesting and educational. This looks like a great time o learn new things. Keep up your great work. Evin boneheads like myself find this of great interest.
Hey here's an idea. Try *MPV.* This plays media very fast and more efficient than complex VLC. I hope it's compiled to RISC V already.
Double click to MPV opens the media, and once the media finished playing, it closes automatically! You might like this way. Very great to quickly examine some lots of medias.
As soon as some more software gains support, im definitely switching to risc-v on my laptop. Ive gutted an old thinkpad w520, and i was gonna put a pi 4 in there but i just dont wanna do that yet when i can feel a risc-v system being so close to possible! Absolutely excellent video, i hope to see more progress on risc-v in the future and i greatly appreciate the attention your channel brings to the architecture!
It's a very useful video. It saved me time and money to do not buy risc-v board yet. I will keep eye on videos like that and perhaps in year or two I can rethink risc-v purchase.
you know i figured out why i stil love your videos. its very 90's / early 2000's style but done in high def and modern.
One of these would be enough for me haha 😂
Great video
Interesting video. I just ordered the VisionFive2 😊
Thanks for showing us the good and the bad.
watched your video on power supply (psu)
excellent job !!!
could not have been done better.
Thanks. :)
Was looking forward to this video
Hello Chris! As always very informative and interesting. Such 7 days with new hardware can also be dangerous, because a harmless attempt turns into something serious. My test with RPI 4 started in 2019 and is still running without interruption. That's over 4 years and I see absolutely no reason to end it. Wait a minute! RPI 5 should come next year.🤔
Cool.
nobody is willing to update the systems, only for some newly released chips.
if it runs, it's good enough !
What system u use that it needs to be updates for RPI 4 ?
A work in progress, but what progress. Many thanks.
Really great video Chris! I use Debian Stable as a daily driver, finding it reliable but the type of OS that doesn't like being messed with at times. I am amazed that they've managed to get Debian to do what they have across so many applications, but the problems with multimedia once updates and other packages were installed was sadly predictable. If they can get Snaps or Flatpaks working (it may already work!) then this may help.
Quite a nice video and challenge, also nice to see how alternative architectures are coming to the game, like it was with ARM architecture a few years ago :>
great video! I’m intrigued. I want to see where RISC V develops. Thanks!
Wohoooo cant wait to watch this video !!!!
Great video Chris.
Thanks 👍
I was eagerly waiting for this vid and you did not disappoint 😊
Thanks. :)
I know it's an older video but I found it really enjoyable. I always assumed yubikeys would just work but I learned something new today! Thanks!
Now we need an open source ISA for GPUs
I don't see why they couldn't just use RISC-V
@@tylerdean980 NVidea was actually thinking of doing just that ! Some years ago. Then their were talks about buying ARM and I don't know what came first.
Nvidia GPUs already use RISC-V
@@Robbie-mw5uu looks like the graphics calculations aren't done on RISC-V, it's more like a management engine ?: "Some GPUs include a GPU System Processor (GSP) which can be used to offload GPU initialization and management tasks. This processor is driven by the firmware file /lib/firmware/nvidia/510.39.01/gsp.bin. A few select products currently use GSP by default, and more products will take advantage of GSP in future driver releases.
Offloading tasks which were traditionally performed by the driver on the CPU can improve performance due to lower latency access to GPU hardware internals."
@@tylerdean980 I've worked in a team designing a commercial GPU, with team members who knew nVidia and AMD GPU internals very well. There is no reason at all that you could not use RISC-V as the basic ISA for a GPU, with a handful of added instructions and functional units e.g. one for texture interpolation. In fact Think Silicon have done just that. At a trade show they told me it took them three weeks to take the special GPU instructions from their existing GPUs with fully custom ISA and get them added to a RISC-V core and working in an FPGA.
Good to see the software development coming along.
For shirts and giggles, tried the lava render on 4790K. Initially using conservative scheduler (my default), sub 5 seconds, then spotted the scheduler as I looked for core usage, ran again with performance and ... sub 4 seconds.
However, I'm mostly looking forward to getting one for HTPC usage because of the dramatically reduced power consumption and therefore heat/noise.
Excellent video, as always. It seems that RISC-V is advancing at a decent pace, which is good news.
I agree, it will be indeed interesting to see risc v in a years time!
An heroic episode of dog-food -eating to test environments. The software's well advanced for development boards.
The 2FA failure is probably because the key uses a compiled (for speed) module to do some calculations. That is obviously CPU specific, and the developers probably lack a few tuits they need to recompile for Risc-V.
The performance of audio relative to the browsers is interesting. The Chrome sound was likely a phasing problem, with two channels of audio and a video to synchronise, the results likely represent different orders of processing between Firefox and Chrome, possibly Chrome not taking advantage of multiple CPUs?
Excellent topic!
It's certainly getting there. Better passive cooling on the faster boards is important, I haven't used active cooling on a desktop PC in years and my hearing appreciates it.
Good Morning from Arizona.
good afternoon to Arizona
from Germany
Greetings from the UK!