uConsole - R-01 and RISC-V thread

Wish to start a RISC-V R-01 thread. And to say Thank you a ton to ClockworkPi for having RISC-V as an option!

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Agreed – the R-01 is what made this thing interesting. I’m slightly concerned about performance, but I love the concept. I hope more RiscV SOCs become popular/available in the future

Would be better with a better chip though. Well at least some good one are coming really soon.

I have ordered the risc-v version, not only the price mattered, but also it is a chance to build a ā€œreal fantasy consoleā€. I already have the devterm a06, actually I do not think this type of devices are suitable for running linux with desktop environment. Maybe it is a chance to make our own fantasy os from scratch on the new rics-v machine.

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This is pretty interesting sounding, how would you do that? Is there a YouTube series or blog I can go to to follow along/learn more?

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I totally agree about not running a desktop environment. I’m just hoping i can get enough performance to get a decent emacs running on fbterm, which i think should be doable. maybe some games would be a bonus, but that’s really not the goal
If i get time i plan on building an image for this thing with buildroot – that’ll keep the image super minimal

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@Ryan_Finlayson, As awesome as this community is, I’m sure there will be a ton of links and howtos once the units start landing ( heck I may even post some things on YouTube once things get real ). Here hear on the ā€˜real fantasy console @nadesico19’ R-01 RISC-V and ā€œjust enough human interfaceā€ this truly will be a ā€œmicro consoleā€ that will meet every wish I have. @wdouglass and @Godzil I can’t wait to get some cross compiling going and see how optimized we can make the kernels, I’ve a feeling 1Ghz and 1GiB will be plenty under RISC architecture. ( That said, this 3.14 main board will be a hoot in that we can easily pop in and pop out performance ā€œifā€ needed. ). I see this as a ssh / tmux dream ā€˜remote control’. As for a window manager I was thinking a super light xfce4 or even dropping to something like i3 to take full advantage of every pixel on the screen. If everyone can’t tell, I’m super excited to rock this uConsole! :metal: :grin: :metal:

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No the ā€œmainboardā€ have no impact on the performance of the core plugged to it. It is just an interface to give USB, HDMI and other output that the module you plug to it can use.

And sorry but the Allwinner D1 may run at 1Ghz, you can do thing with it, but the lack of GPU (even if there is some pseudo 2D acceleration) will limit what you can do graphically and it is not a performance RISC-V core, it is an In Order CPU mono core CPU. The performance to expect from that CPU is way under a Pentium 2 or 3 roughly.

Oh 100% agree with you @Godzil in that the main board is just the carrier for the R-01 board. My poorly expressed thought pattern is that the R-02 board ( when it hits the deck ) hopefully, will just slot into the 3.14 main board. Thus, just pop in performance with ejection of the R-01 and insertion of the R-02 and go! I’m sure the R-02 will be fabulous too ( when it exists ).

Yes unless CPi want to get rid of that format which is still possible, if they release now SoM for the DevTerm / uConsole, they will be just swap from the one currently installed. You will, though, need to refresh your SD card.

I have also ordered the uConsole with the R-01. Mostly will be light terminal use so graphics processing isn’t much of an issue. I already have a devTerm with a CM3 module in it and will swap with the uConsole if I need to. Still curious about power consumption of the R-01 vs the other processors. Now the long wait. I also have on order the Popcorn computer that is way overdue but includes a LoRa module.

that popcorn computer is cool looking, but also seems kinda vapory… I hadn’t heard of LoRa before, but it seems really useful – i didn’t order my uConsole with the 4g ext module – a LoRa module to fit there would be pretty cool!

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I already have a devterm A06. Can I theoretically get uConsole R-01 and swap the core?

Absolutely @hhanggodo the only thing you will need to consider is the partition or SD card. A06 vs R0-1, as you know, are different arches so the OS will need to support it. But, a simple secondary SD card and the R0-1 core and you are good to go as I understand. I’m sure that others will correct my errors if I misstated something. That said, this is one of my plans to try too ( module to suite the needs of the moment or day ) :metal:

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