Pine64’s New ARM and RISC-V Tablets Run Linux
Pine64 makes plenty of hardware geared towards fans of Linux and open-source hardware. Now the company is about to release a new ARM-based Linux tablet, as well as its first RISC-V tablet.
Computers Tech Games Crypto Music and More
Let me just quickly reiterate the Star64 features:
– Quad core 64bit RISC-V
– HDMI video output
– 4x DSI and 4x CSI lates
– i2c touch panel connector
– dual Gigabit Ethernet ports
– dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth
– 1x native USB3.0 port, 3x shared USB2.0 ports
– PCIe x1 open-ended slot and GPIO bus pins (i2c, SPI and UART).
– The board also features 128M QSPI flash and eMMC and microSD card slots.
The board will be available in two different RAM configurations — with 4GB and 8GB LPDDR4 memory for $69.99 and $89.99 respectively. The Star64 store page ought to already be live when you read this, but will be listed as out of stock until the 4th.
Liliputing offers this summary:
The Star64 is a single-board computer with a quad-core RISC-V processor, support for up to 8GB of RAM and up to 128GB of storage (as well as a microSD card reader). Developed by the folks at Pine64, it’s designed to be an affordable platform for developers and hobbyists looking to get started with RISC-V architecture. Pine64 first announced it was working on the Star64 last summer…
Meanwhile, PINE64’s Linux tablets, the PineTab2 and PineTab-V, will launch one week later on Tuesday, April 11th.
Other highlights from this month’s community update: there’s now a dedicated Debian with GNOME image with tailored settings for grayscale for their Linux-based “PineNote” e-ink tablets. (“Other OSes and desktop environments are being worked on too.”)
And the update also includes photos of one user’s cool 3D-printed replacement cases for their PinePhone featuring Tux the penguin.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
One of Bergstrom’s slides featured the above “to-do” list, which included a ton of major Android components. Unlike Android’s unpolished support for x86, Bergstrom promised a real push for quality with RISC-V, saying, “We need to do all of the work to move from a prototype and something that runs to something that’s really singing — that’s showing off the best-in-class processors that [RISC-V International Chairman Krste Asanovic] was mentioning in the previous talk.” Once Google does get Android up and running on RISC-V, then it will be up to manufacturers and the app ecosystem to back the platform. What’s fun about the Android RunTime is that when ART supports RISC-V, a big chunk of the Android app ecosystem will come with it. Android apps ship as Java code, and the way that becomes an ARM app is when the Android Runtime compiles it into ARM code. Instead, it will soon compile into RISC-V code with no extra work from the developer. Native code that isn’t written in Java, like games and component libraries, will need to be ported over, but starting with Java code is a big jump-start.
In her opening remarks, RISC-V International (the nonprofit company that owns the architecture) CEO Calista Redmond argued that “RISC-V is inevitable” thanks to the open business model and wave of open chip design that it can create, and it’s getting hard to argue against that. While the show was mostly about the advantages of RISC-V, I want to add that the biggest reason RISC-V seems inevitable is that current CPU front-runner Arm has become an unstable, volatile company, and it feels like any viable alternative would have a good shot at success right now. […] The other reason to kick Arm to the curb is the US-China trade war, specifically that Chinese companies (and the Chinese government) would really like to distance themselves from Western technology. […] RISC-V is seen as a way to be less reliant on the West. While the project started at UC Berkeley, RISC-V International says the open source architecture is not subject to US export law. In 2019, the RISC-V Foundation actually moved from the US to Switzerland and became “RISC-V International,” all to try to avoid picking a side in the US-China trade war. The result is that Chinese tech companies are rallying around RISC-V as the future chip architecture. One Chinese company hit by US export restrictions, the e-commerce giant Alibaba, has been the leading force in bringing RISC-V support to Android, and with Chinese companies playing a huge part in the Android ecosystem, it makes sense that Google would throw open the doors for official support. Now we just need someone to build a phone.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.