Which board to support?

[Yleisajattelija]

RISC-V emulator for qemu:

https://twilco.github.io/riscv-from-scratch/2019/03/10/riscv-from-scratch-1.html#qemu-and-risc-v-toolchain-setup

Very diffult issue, is emulator worth of trying? Traditionally !'m HW-oriented, and prefer "hard stuff" instead of emulatosrs.

But times changes, and is this worth of try now?

https://pages.hmc.edu/harris/class/e154/lect/RVSoC-ch3tools.pdf

[Yleisajattelija]

Spike RISC-V simulator:

https://deepwiki.com/riscv-software-src/riscv-tools/2.1-spike-(isa-simulator)#spike-isa-simulator

Comparison:

https://forums.sifive.com/t/simple-risc-v-isa-simulators/3803

[Yleisajattelija]

VSRVES01 -board is now up and running. Next I try to built RISC-V toolchain and reproduce original image.

Unfortunatelly there is no GIT repo yet, so I have to build it from scratch.

JTAG debugging bus is not implemented:

"There is no JTAG. It would make life more miserable because it works on write register, read memory and so on to debug Linux program. So print debug it is."
 

[Yleisajattelija]

Ok, new place for TC-mirror found. At first working copy of GIT-repo is placed there. Let's try to compile.

Unfortunatelly it will take time, uP and tools chain are some kind of "beta-prototype".

[Yleisajattelija]

There seems to be strong support from kernel development group for this VLSI-Solutions uP, so lets proceed....

[rc3105]

LuckFox Pico RV1103 Linux Micro Development Board ARM Cortex-A7 MCU/NPU/ISP with 64MB ram and Debian 22.4

https://www.luckfox.com/EN-Luckfox-Pico?ci=524

I hate to dig up an old thread, but I have a thought.

But first let me say TinyCore is AWESOME!  I still have DSL and Puppy disks and thumb drives rattling around my toolboxes.  I dunno how I missed this for so long, guess I've just been wrapped up in 3d printing...

So, the LuckFox Pico that I posted a link for shares a footprint with the Raspberry Pi Pico, which makes it SUPER handy for building something and quickly developing the software in Python or whatever before crunching the project down to a firmware.

There are adapter boards that put a Pi Pico into an Arduino Uno footprint.

So that lets you take various daughter boards, shields as the Arduino folks call them, developed to run 3d printers, robot projects, home automation, whatever, and upgrade them with the much more powerful Pi Pico, which are about $3 in any kind of qty.  And there's an Arduino package that supports the Pi Pico so even kids can have an led blinking in like 10 mins if they read the instructions.

The Luckfox Pico are about $6 in qty, and run a basic Debian 22.4 distro with apt-get, which is pretty nice, but as you can guess, a bit bloated for a single core ARM7 with only 64mb of ram.  Don't get me wrong, a stripped down Debian is VERY useful, and while the LuckFox Pico aren't as much bang for the buck as a $5 Raspberry Pi Zero, who even manages to stock the Zero anymore?  Much less at a decent price...

But back to the point, TinyCore is fantastic, those LuckFox Pico are also pretty groovy.

If I had the braincells to build a TinyCore image for the LuckFox Pico I'd def lose my mind down that rabbit hole.

I've been noodling with *nix long enough I might be able to pull it off with an insane amount of googling and some AI help, but I probably shouldn't hold my breath.

If anybody smarter than me wants to take a run at it, or point me in the right direction (as I'm going down that rabbit hole anyway) I'd be happy to donate some boards to play with.

TinyCore would be INSANELY useful in 3d printing controllers!!!

Creality already uses a Mips Linux for their K series printers, and it is SO much nicer than the oldskool Marlin firmware machines, or even Smoothieware, but it's a custom board and they're not as sharing as they really oughta be with some source and such.

*I've worked with Thinkyhead the Marlin mastermind, it's fantastic for what it is, but it isn't a full operating system

There are a gazillion 3d printers out there with Arduino based controllers running Marlin, that could easily be upgraded to a Raspberry or LuckFox Pico, and with TinyCore under the hood all those obsolete boat anchor dual head Replicator X2 could be revived as multicolor printers instead of recycled to salvage a few motors and bearings.

Anybody else think this could be a thing?  Or am I just nuts...