Ubuntu Aims To Support the $16+ Sipeed LicheeRV and Other RISC-V Boards

"In addition to Ubuntu supporting the StarFive VisionFive and Nezha RISC-V boards, Canonical engineers are also working on supporting the Sipeed LicheeRV board too for next month's 22.10 release," reports Phoronix.

"The Sipeed LicheeRV is notable in being one of the cheapest RISC-V boards out there: pricing starts at $16.90 USD...." The Sipeed LicheeRV uses the Allwinner D1 SoC and is powered by a single-core XuanTie C906 64-bit RISC-V processor. This single-core RISC-V processor runs at just 1.0GHz. Yes, this is a very cheap but slow board. The LicheeRV is primarily for networking purposes and other IoT use-cases....

The Sipeed LicheeRV was announced last year and initially targeting support for OpenWrt-based Linux distributions, but Canonical recently has been working on getting support for this RISC-V board squared away in time for Ubuntu 22.10.

This appears to be part of an increasing focus by the Ubuntu maker for being a leading distribution contender for RISC-V hardware.

Well, at least not a crappy Broadcom SoC...

[gweihir]

You know, here documentation is lacking, design is sub-standard, interfaces are sparse and some rabid no-clue fanbois attack you if you point out its flaws.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

The D1 chip is an open design. You can grab the Verilog code and simulate it yourself.

Re:

[iggymanz]

hahaha, yeah and the docs are this

https://d1.docs.aw-ol.com/ [aw-ol.com]

and spoiler if you don't understand chinese, they're full of holes. lotsa luck with your OS writing...

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

I have a D1 board. Honestly, it makes the Broadcom stuff look like a marvel of good design and documentation. In fact I initially came to this thread to pose the question "Ubuntu may support the D1, but does the D1 know it's supposed to support Ubuntu?".

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of my eyes rolling.

I'm not a fanboi. I find fanbois annoying, but you know what's every bit as annoying as fanbois? Performatively hating on something so show you're superior.Actually that IS fanboiism, just being a fan of something even sillier.

Oh good gosh and are the raspberry pi threads ever full of those types. Lots of people find the raspberry pi useful for all sorts of perfectly good reasons. They are not wrong. You can't logic or spec-list them into being wr

Re:Well, at least not a crappy Broadcom SoC...

[kriston]

While I have been a big fan of Raspberry Pi since day one, the Orange Pi line of devices is not only cheaper and more available in today's market, it performs better in disk I/O.

For example, the Orange Pi Zero is what the Raspberry Pi Zero should have been.

Re:

[gweihir]

Exactly. I have several Orange Pis running now. Reliable, real network interface, USB that does not suck, designed by actual electronics and SoC designers, not amateurs with delusions and ties to Broadcom. I also have two old RPis that are basically trash and were trash from day one.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

I use Odroids for the same reason. You're pretty much perfectly summed up why I avoid Pis like the plague. I have non-Pi devices with uptimes measured in years, and the Pis are in months at most. Every single Pi has trashed its own firmware at least once from nothing more strenuous than, you know, running, and even then they need more coddling than an incontinent toddler to keep going.

Re:

[gweihir]

Indeed. Odroids would have been my next try if the Orange Pis had not worked out. The fact of the matter is the RPi is about the worst broken and incompetently designed crap in this space. Without the marketing it would simply have failed.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

How much of a drop-in replacement are Orange Pis for Raspberry Pis? I'm still running three Pi-based systems, one on its second set of hardware, one on its third, and one surprisingly still on its first but with three reflashes of the firmware after it shit itself at various times.

I'd really like to replace the PiAware in particular because every time it goes down I need to climb up to where it is and unplug and re-plug everything in exactly the right sequence because of its braindead USB design to get it

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

> For example, the Orange Pi Zero is what the Raspberry Pi Zero should have been.

Is it really $35? And it's better than a $5 board?

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

Don't have any experience with the Orange Pi specifically but if you're happy going with PoS hardware to save thirty bucks, you're doing it wrong. Case in point: The Pi Zero's ingenious buggy ADC which adds glitches at random locations to your input. Lookit this cool device, only $5 and it's got 500ksps 12-bit ADCs, for FIVE BUCKS. OK, so they don't actually work correctly, but FIVE BUCKS, how cheap is that? Isn't that totally worth the $1000 worth of engineering time it's going to take to figure out th

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

Orange Pi line of devices is not only cheaper and more available in today's market, it performs better in disk I/O.

There's only one of those I care about.

I've never been in the situation that (a) I need a Pi-like amount of power in an SBC and (b) I'm so heavily cost constrained reducing the 30-50 quid outlay is worth spending the time on. Also, I've never been in a situation where disk I/O has been a limiting factor.

If you're super cost sensitive or need high performance then the pi is not for you. Like I s

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re: Well, at least not a crappy Broadcom SoC...

[ThurstonMoore]

It won't even play a 1080 YouTube video, Iâ(TM)d love to have my money back for the POS raspberry pi I bought, most disappointing turd ever.

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

It won't even play a 1080 YouTube video,

Cool story.

Sounds like you bought it for a task it wasn't suited for.

Re: Well, at least not a crappy Broadcom SoC...

[ThurstonMoore]

Talk about fan boys, have you looked in the mirror?

Re:

[serviscope_minor]

Youtube in a browser is a massive hog, my 1.7GHz i7 can barely keep up these days why would I ever think a 1.5GHz A72 would be an ideal choice? In the world of people-who-try-and-fail-to-prove-they-are-smart-by-hating-something-popular, that makes me a "fan boy" because I can read and understand specs and not expect performance beyond the specs.

If you make a dumb purchasing choice, you're the dumbass, not the people who built the thing you bought.

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

rabid no-clue fanbois attack you if you point out its flaws.

Yeh, thanks for pointing out that a $16 SBC isn't a match for a $2500 laptop.

Re:

[gweihir]

Actually it is not a match for other $16 SBCs...

Bummer

[stabiesoft]

I looked, the LicheeRV did not seem to have GPIO exposed and the other two appear to have GPIO but are way more than a pi. I guess I'll keep waiting for pi's to come back to in stock.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

I own a LicheeRV and it has a lot of gpio pins exposed. https://linux-sunxi.org/Sipeed... [linux-sunxi.org]

That header is nearly all gpio.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

I think the confusion is because the spec says it has 2x M.2 ports, which I initially thought meant it could function as an M.2 card, but they are actually just using the connector to make a load of GPIO, SPI, USB, HDMI, ADCs, audio, SD card interface and more available.

Schematic, pinout of connectors on page 13: https://dl.sipeed.com/fileList... [sipeed.com]

It's an interesting board, but unlike a full size or nano Pi you need a breakout board to do much with it. There is no HDMI on-board, just a single USB port and a 3

Re:Bummer

[ArchieBunker]

I'm pretty happy so far. The breakout board is only $8 and of course Aliexpress shows that as the price first and fools you. It was $32 for a board with wifi and a dock shipped to the USA. One nice feature is the breakout board has a built in 3w amplifier for driving a speaker. It also has a header for driving a small oled display. Memory isn't a concern. Mine runs Debian and is using only 40Mb out of 512Mb.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

That's pretty good. What is power consumption like? A low power Linux system might be useful.

Re:

[stabiesoft]

Ah, good to know. As AmiMoJo pointed out, it did not look like it based on the board edge connector. I may check it out. I still have a couple pi's spare, but given it has been a couple years since I could get a pi, I may need to try it out. The last project I did I would have preferred a zero-W, but I had only pi-3's in my stash, so used a 3. And if you know, is power consumption on the board (and the adapter board if active) lower than a pi? And how much extra is wifi on the adapter board. Link says it is

Re:

[couchslug]

At least one of Pooh's subjects took offense, but the mainland remains a global security threat for reasons which should be obvious.

TiXi

[labnet]

I hear the XuanTie reports directly to Chairman Xi !!
Beware the TeeShee!

Ummm.. why?

[devslash0]

Why would I run a desktop distro (even if slimmed down) known to snoop on you on a network or IoT device? There are other, purpose-built distros for that.

https://c.tenor.com/R_N2FwCFBb... [tenor.com]

Is the bootloader open, too?

[kriston]

Is it really open? I mean, is the bootloader open and does it not have binary, proprietary blobs in the kernel?

The non-open bootloader and drivers with binary blobs are primary complaints of many of the SBCs I have, including Orange Pi (Allwinner) and Raspberry Pi (Broadcom).

Re:

[ChunderDownunder]

Not sure about proprietary blobs on specific boards but there's SBI:

https://github.com/riscv-softw... [github.com]

Supporting China

[Nocturrne]

Let's support Chinese and Russian SOCs, yeah! They will be so happy to launch their RISC based drones and missiles at us.