Off-Topic > Off-Topic - Tiny Core Lounge
Octa core Risc V .....sbc
CentralWare:
UPDATE:
* Booting from SD card is temperamental - experimentation necessary for different brands
* Booting from USB, thus far, is flawless. Burn the image directly to USB and skip a good deal of headaches! USB M.2/SATA is not only easy, but happily fast!
* Booting from NVMe is available only on the 2280 slot - there's no u_boot support for the top slot yet. HOWEVER, sources are available.
* Booting from eMMC is the best option, but far from the cheapest
* Attached a M2 to 6-Port SATA3 adapter - worked effortlessly. Connected a few drives, created a generic RAID6, everything as expected under mdadm.
* Still have not exceeded 2AMPs with all of the different layouts, but voltage drop is concerning >0.7W (Hard drives were externally powered.)
* The OPi repository is a little dated, but considering most of the files are *.deb expansion shouldn't be an issue.
* The RTC battery connection is a 1.25mm JST connector - one connector + 1 CR2032 Socket = Easy RTC
* Using RasPi v4/v5 heat-sinks we were able to amply cover the processor and a 1mm copper plate was affixed to the RAM chip - 41°C under high load with a 5010 fan blowing on it.
We've designed an enclosure (which is ALPHA stage at this point!) that we're printing as we speak. The power button is going to be redesigned (I don't like the "clunky" nature of the current one (light blue) but in the end, this will be a three-layer cake, in essence, the OPi on the top, a CD/DVD/BDR in the middle and a six bay 2.5" SATA hot-swap cage on the bottom, all in a 5.25" modular concept considering we're probably going to end up using an ATX power supply to make it all function so why not put it into a case!? There's going to be a number of relay boards implemented for power management and the likes, so a Mini ATX case should be cheap and easy!
There's also going to be either a 1602 or 2004 LCD on the front, a couple RGBIC status LEDs, two tiny internal 3W speakers, a 50mm turbine cooling fan (still working out airflow dynamics) and a rear-mounted wireless IPEX antenna for BT and WiFi.
BUT...
* The USB-C connector on the OPi is surface mount - we'll have to manufacture a Molex or SATA to USB-C adapter just to feed it 5V (documentation makes it sound like feeding it from GPIO is a bad idea. Then again, so did RasPi back in the day.)
* GPIO numbering is going to take some getting used to and WiringPI compiled for OPi is supposedly ready for such numbers
* BOOT and RESET buttons are surface mount in very hard to reach locations - probably not something we'll be creating headers for
* POWER button is a very thin through-hole which MAY be able to be given headers - or at least a wired socket, otherwise we're stuck using a mechanical bar like in the picture
neonix:
https://old.reddit.com/r/RISCV/comments/se50ur/some_good_news_in_the_gpu_department/?rdt=40186
Most probably GPU drivers will be distributed as binary blob. If I want to use it in 2035 or 2045, will I get working GPU driver on Linux?
If GPU and CPU is in one chip, radiator or fan will be essential. New RPies also has overheating problem.
You also need to invest in non-standard power supply and computer case. If you don't have HDMI monitor, VGA-HDMI converter costs 15 USD.
CentralWare:
--- Quote from: neonix on May 07, 2025, 01:55:28 AM ---https://old.reddit.com/r/RISCV/comments/se50ur/some_good_news_in_the_gpu_department/?rdt=40186
Most probably GPU drivers will be distributed as binary blob. If I want to use it in 2035 or 2045, will I get working GPU driver on Linux?
If GPU and CPU is in one chip, radiator or fan will be essential. New RPies also has overheating problem.
You also need to invest in non-standard power supply and computer case. If you don't have HDMI monitor, VGA-HDMI converter costs 15 USD.
--- End quote ---
Good morning, @Neonix!
CPU/GPU look to be in the same chip.
DMesg | grep has two responses for "video"
--- Code: ---videodev: Linux video capture interface: v2.00
usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
--- End code ---
...which is driven by
--- Code: ---ky-drm-drv c0440000.display-subsystem-hdmi: bound soc:port@c0440000 (ops dpu_component_ops)
ky-drm-drv c0440000.display-subsystem-hdmi: bound c0400500.hdmi (ops ky_hdmi_ops)
[drm] Initialized rvdisplay 1.0.0 20231115 for c0440000.display-subsystem-hdmi on minor 1
--- End code ---
...and yes, the driver is probably a blob found here at their hub. (I haven't dug for it yet.)
Yes, radiator(s) and a fan are important (though there are reports of people using them without... I don't see that as being wise with the testing we've done.)
Power Supply - they actually have an "oem" power supply that looks good enough for standard use, but when dealing with hard drives and other items requiring 9v/12v/15v/etc. their USB-C port is pretty useless, so yes, a non-usb-c power supply is in order, but "non-standard" may not be the case if using an ATX or similar PSU.
Computer Case - I've already begun design of two cases, one of which is intended for a NAS build and fits quite nicely. (See Pic)
As for the HDMI to VGA adapter, we have plenty of those in stock and in the States (Amazon for example) they're about $8 ea.
CentralWare:
Minor Update:
* OPi is now connected to an ATX (1U) power supply using 5vSB (purple PSU wire) inside a $30 Mini ITX computer case which had a 150w power supply included (see photo)
* GPIO is being used to turn the power supply "on" which launches fans, HDDs, etc. (green PSU wire)
* Mini ITX to OPi mount built to create an I/O plate on the rear of the case and even a small "tube" for the WiFi antenna to hide in
* 5015 Turbine/Centrifuge Fan added to cool top and bottom of board (38 degrees was the max at 100% CPU) - tiny bit noisy, but expected due to size and type of cooling fan
* USB-C power connection bypassed by utilizing the *FAN* header and used as 5v DC INPUT (from any RED PSU wire.)
* Power and Reset buttons will need to have wired headers soldered on to them to utilize the case's front buttons
* GPIO pin(s) might get used for the case's front LEDs and HDD LED assigned to sys/class/leds for displaying "activity"
* RTC battery adapter (with on/off switch) implemented to keep time
* 6 Port SATA M.2 board temporarily connected to top socket to test SATA capabilities/throughputI'm about 1/3 of the way of putting a sane kernel config together to accommodate TCL's way of doing things, we have about 75% of the toolchain apps gathered and set up, cross-chain built and tested for kernel, u-boot and SOME of the apps needed for our foundation (still a ways to go), graphics binary/blob is now in our archive, but still being investigated and wireless is still being looked into as we found a few weak spots/bugs while testing the cross-compilation environment and technical support at the factory... less than ideal. (No response to my last handful of emails once moneys had been exchanged.) I don't want to get TOO carried away with compiling just yet as I want to test a number of build scripts on the RISCV board and also through the cross-compiler environment to make sure we can accomplish everything in a more automated fashion.
If anyone wants to lend a hand, go to our project's Git Hub and read the page's info, then take a look inside the "final" directory for a few examples of working (tested under ASH thus far) builder scripts. Initially, we will want and need virtually anything compiler/linker/library related. Take a look at one of the existing builder scripts in ./final, it should be reasonably easy to follow. For go_version() there are going to be plenty of people who can code in C in their sleep, but "web" anything isn't in their wheel-house. For anyone wanting to help but not sure how to scrape information from online resources, simply have go_version() return the word "unknown" and we'll tend to version scraping for you. (Be sure to fill out SRC_SITE="" so we know where to look!)
gadget42:
did a quick forum search for "riscv" and this seems like the best place to post this interesting work(yes it is oldish circa 2020):
direct pdf link:
https://www.openbsd.org/papers/Porting_OpenBSD_to_RISCV_FinalReport.pdf
found via:
https://lobste.rs/s/koetct/porting_openbsd_risc_v_isa_2020
via:
https://lobste.rs/t/openbsd
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