As reported over at Phoronix the Framework laptop guys are getting closer to launching a RiscV module for their laptop. It’s using the same StarFive JH7110 chip that powers the SBC StarFive VisionFive2 we covered last year.
The performance is a bit ho hum, but as highlighed on hacker news in this thread there seems to be a desire from at least some users for a general purpose CPU without an ME style component.
Recently Christopher Barnatt on his YouTube channel ExplainingComputers has spent a week attempting to “live off the land” in a purely RiscV environment.
In some respects it a great demo of how far things have come. A large portion what you would expect to work is in place, however some basic functionality such as the inability to use Yubikeys to authenticate via the browser (probably an issue with the libu2f-udev libraries) and the inability to run complex application with many dependancies such as Kdenlive/Blender.
