ASUS Unveils The Tinker V As Their First RISC-V Board

[Old Grouch]

It could be an interesting target for OpenWrt - with two GigE ports, one faces the WAN, and the other a local switch. Given the cpu specifications, I doubt it could route a full GigE of traffic, but it would be nice to get more RISC-V options for OpenWrt.

The specifications say it has 1 x microUSB and 1 x microUSB OTG.

For OpenWrt use, the CAN Bus is superfluous, not so sure about the RS232

Just to be clear, OpenWrt support for a (different) RISC-V SOC already exists. So it's 'just' a potential additional option.

[macemoneta]

It would be interesting to know how the GbE ports are connected. Are they USB like on Raspberry Pi?

The Raspberry Pi 4, unlike previous models, does not have a USB-based Ethernet; It's driven direct by the CPU with a PHY:

https://heise.cloudimg.io/width/712/...db4be588cf.png

[stiiixy]

POWER10 systems currently require non-free blobs to initialise the modular memory. Not everyone is happy with this. The hope of some is that RISC-V will enable the production of 'blob-free' systems, which is important to some people.

Phoronix: Binary Blobs Continue To Prove Challenging For POWER10 Plus Very Expensive Motherboards

"Apparently" P11 wont have the unfortunate set-back that P10 suffers from. If you read the supporting links from the Phoronix posts, especially from the chap who made the case, you'd know.

P11, however, has a release date of "in the future" as far as I'm aware.

[jacob]

POWER10 systems currently require non-free blobs to initialise the modular memory. Not everyone is happy with this. The hope of some is that RISC-V will enable the production of 'blob-free' systems, which is important to some people.

Phoronix: Binary Blobs Continue To Prove Challenging For POWER10 Plus Very Expensive Motherboards

Maybe there is something that I'm not aware of, but it seems to me that RISC-V is no more likely to bring a fully FOSS, blob-free architecture than ARM or x86. Just because the ISA is royalty free doesn't mean manufacturers won't sell chips with proprietary microcode and management engines just like everyone else - in fact, it may even make it easier for them licence-wise. The free ISA was a promise of a more lively ecosystem but honestly even that doesn't really seem to be happening, unless you count ultra low end mobile SoCs at $1000 a pop.