Please somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I really don’t find the “chip makers don’t have to pay licence fees” a compelling argument that RISC-V is good for the consumer. Theres only a few foundries capable of making CPUs, and the desktop market seems incredibly hard to break into.
I imagine it’s likely that the cost of ISA licencing isn’t what’s holding back competition in the CPU space, but rather its a good old fashioned duopoly combined with a generally high cost of entry.
Of course, more options is better IMO, and the Linux community’s focus on FOSS should make hopping architectures much easier than on Windows or MacOS. But I’d be surprised if we see a laptop/desktop CPU based on RISC-V competing with current options anytime soon.
Efficiency too. I think RISC-V is mostly not made by these companies, which is why their efficiency is below x86_64 and performance is below an Intel Core 2 Duo
Lower ISA license fees do nothing to help desktop users directly. The fact that “anybody can make one” is what will help. The competition and innovation that RISC-V will drive will eventually be a massive boon to end-users.
It is not hard to “make your own chips” anymore. The barrier to entry has dropped tremendously. Apple has their own chips. Google has their own chips. Samsung has their own chips. Microsoft even has their own chips. Except none of them actually “make” processors. They are all fabricated ( manufactured ) by TSMC in Taiwan. Only Intel really makes its own chips and even they do not make all of them. TSMC would fabricate chips for you too if you placed a big enough order.
It is less about the cost of the license and more about being able to license it at all. Only AMD and Intel can design chips implementing the x86-64 ISA. ARM is not much better. Only huge customers can get a license to create novel ARM chips. Most ARM customers are licensing core designs off of ARM themselves ( eg. Cortex
Anybody can legally design a RISC-V CPU—even you! So, if you are a company or country that cannot get access to x86 or even ARM ( like Alibaba / China ) then RISC-V is your answer. Or if you have an innovative idea for a chip, RISC-V is for you. And since it is Open Source, RISC-V allows you to collaborate on designs or even give them away:
The “desktop” market is incredibly hard to break into but that is because the “desktop” market is more about the operating system and its applications.
Apple can move to whatever ISA they want as they control both the hardware and the operating system. They have migrated several times, most recently to ARM with “Apple Silicon”.
Microsoft would love to move to ARM to compete with the power efficiency of Apple Silicon. Outside of gaming, the “desktop” market these days is laptops where things like battery life really matter. Microsoft has failed a few times though because of the application side. The recent push with Qualcomm X Elite looks the most promising but time will tell.
Only Microsoft and Apple matter on the desktop.
I use desktop Linux but Linux is less than 5% of the desktop market. That is a shame because Linux, with its vast ecosystem of Open Source applications, is a lot easier to port to new architectures.
You can run a RISC-V Linux desktop today. It will be super slow but you can do it.
We need RISC-V to get faster and more power efficient. Thankfully, there is competition.
if they run hardware that’s not cutting edge, by all means, that’s the best solution as a first distro.
ubuntu is important as a stepping stone. myself and everyone I know that’s on Fedora et al started with Ubuntu. we learned what’s what and how to go about doing things and after hitting the ceiling one too many times, we tried other stuff, found better havens and finally abandoned it forever.
so I’d caution against any action aimed at hurting it. leave it be and know that it’s still the most user-friendly solution out there and the one that’s most likely to “just work” for most people. it’ll convert people over, whether from Windows or MacOS. once they’ve crossed over, they’re more likely to wander further.
My rule is that I only do stuff that comes from within me.
Now that doesn’t mean that I can’t search for that feeling.
I mean sure, if I am on the sofa with a warm blanket posting to Lemmy, I am gonna be anchored there.
What works for me is to work backwards. What do I want? Why? What is needed for that? Why? Just keep breaking it up.
Then I’ll do what I call circling, like an eagle. You start with the big circle and slowly shrink it until you get to the core of the matter and finally swoop down and catch your target.
For instance a large circle could be being at your pc drinking a coffee, reading something, taking some short breaks to move and look out the window. This is already closer than say doomscrolling, and in that sense a success.
Now once it feels right, you circle a bit closer. Read or watch something related to the topic you care about. And so on.
The trick is to work with the grain, instead of against the grain, of your brainy bits by balancing boredom against frustration in order to find your flow.
You can stay in any circle as long as you please and it is better to step back into a larger circle than to give up entirely.
While doing this keep visualizing what success looks like. Express this, but also your anxieties and whatever else in a freewriting note (avoid structure).
Most importantly perhaps is to remain skeptical of your desires. The world will always have more work for you to do and will happily keep you busy. And your desires aren’t necessarily your friends. Be conscious of the ones you want to commit to. The easiest way to close a task is to simply not do it.
I kind of want to do it though. I want to be busy. I want to be hosting FOSS software for other people, like a SearX instance and maybe Invidious. The problem is, there’s many more things that I should be doing in my homelab but for some reason I find more motivation in doing something that can help others rather than for myself
I like FOSS and I like the community. It’s probably just in my character to be motivated for someone else, which is why I’m looking for ways to trick my brain
I remember the frame time issue happening but it fixed itself and I can’t remember the cause. Try changing the refresh rate of your monitor, it might kick something which fixes it.
Performance should definitely be mostly on par with Windows.
I love a good hardcover, but tend to flip between hardcover, paperback, and kobo e-ink. I try to buy used books where possible just for the environmental impact. They are often less expensive, too.
Imo it’s only a tool to understand and explain situations, not so much a tool to solve problems. Definitely understanding the forces that make up the conflict might help you solve a problem, but the solution will depend on what kind of forces are involved.
They want you to buy their new games. They also want you to be more likely to buy the old games again when they eventually do a sloppy re-release of the old games or tie it to increase the value of their subscription offerings. Basically to make more money.
This is the biggest one. Why buy a new game if you are continually playing old ones?
When dealing with for profit comapnies, the answer ALWAYS comes down to money. Money for who might change, but it will never not be about money in some way.
Yes. Less blobs than ARM. I’m not even sure if some RISC-V have any blobs – someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Also getting cockblocked by proprietaryisms is bullshit. HDMI is a Circle Jerk of capitalism controlling competition and the market for self preservation.
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