this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 98 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They want to "persuade" them to not use cheap open RISC-V cores.

[–] merthyr1831 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

RISC-V is inevitable. ARM would do well to start building IP on the architecture before they're left in the dust by SiFive and friends.

Like, right now the best RISC-V cores are already faster than the A72 core on the Pi 4. A few years before and these same companies were only competing for the microcontroller market.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Interesting. In the latest Amp Hour Podcast Episode about RPi, Chris Gammell asked about the ARM-Connection and if there are any ideas about going the RISC way one day. James Adams and Liam Fraser answered very diplomatic (like "good Architecture, exciting, but we know arm and their benefits too well"). I guess there is now no open path anymore for RPi ever going down that road.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

At the moment their current OS is backwards compatible with the 32-bit Model B+ they released back around 2014, so only one distro to maintain and one set of kernel modules etc. I can imagine they probably have a very close relationship with Broadcom at this point too...

It's slightly disappointing, but it's still very, very early days for RISC-V, some things just aren't there yet like the value for money, performance per watt, and support for various hardware features. In a few years though things will look very different...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

AFAIK Broadcom/Broadcom employees is/are who founded the RaspberryPi Foundation for educational purposes.

Edit: after a bit of googling this isn't accurate but Broadcom does supply funding and has some employees on the board so it seems they play a big role in the organization.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Rpi is basically just a broadcom promotional tool that got out of hand.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Bah, there's so many RPi clones and offshoots now I wonder if they can even survive the coming market. Especially when RISC-V SBC's are becoming more common.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It will all boil down to software/os support

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Its slowly happening. ExplainingComputers has had good results using a RISC-V SBC.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This. I buy RPi because it's the cheapest/lowest-power-consumption computer where you can get actual good support and good guides online on how to solve common problems with it, not because it's the best bang-for-buck. I think about the weird-ass problems I had with my RPis and I'd hate to deal with that crap without access to the amount of help online you get with a Pi.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

RISC-V SBC's are indeed becoming more common but they aren't quite here for the consumer end, not atleast yet. Cool simple video about it: https://youtu.be/RhPKZ5JpbHw

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

They are not much cheaper though. Often they're even more expensive than a Pi with similar specs.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hilarious. Money corrupts all. Next up, an organization that wants to take the original Raspberry Pi’s goal and extend that open model to all parts of a computer system including the hardware. IMO, whoever wants to spend the up-front money to take over that role is going to get very, very rich.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would throw money at Pine64 if I could, sadly right now I actually only need a new soldering iron so opted for their Pinecil.

I love that they take literally anything and make an open source variant: phone, ARM laptop, SBC, smart soldering iron, smart watch, IP camera, and even earbuds!

Kind of wish they could do a collab with Fairphone at some point... FP handle the fairtrade hardware sourcing and manufacture, and P64 handle the OSS firmware

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I’ve got a Pinebook Pro and Pinetab 2 and both are great.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

If you want a slice of this pie, it’s going to cost you an arm and a leg.