this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Debian Linux is Joining The RISC-V Bandwagon (www.howtogeek.com)
submitted 1 year ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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[–] happyhippo@feddit.it 16 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I'm also just a normal tech person, so my answers may be inaccurate.

My understanding is:

  1. ARM seems superior in the mobile computing domain where efficiency matters more than raw power. I wonder if that's related to the RISC vs CISC instructions... if that's the case, having an open architecture alternative to ARM would allow any manufacturer to create their CPU designs without having to pay a hefty fee to ARM. Should bring more competition and won't keep manufacturers hostage of ARM. If ARMs raises their royalties 1000x, Apple, Qualcomm etc just have to comply for lack of alternatives, and consumers end up paying the price. This won't be possible with RISC-V
  2. I can definitely see this happening, or at least having the option. OSs and apps will have to build for that new architecture of course, which takes time and money. I'm personally particularly excited about laptops
  3. I guess. I don't think it's ever impossible to do this, it's always a matter of how much of an impact it has on performances

If I said something stupid, please let me know, I'd like to learn about this!

[–] Decker108@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Just to clarify a few points in #1: CISC has gone largely (entirely?) extinct, so it doesn't play into this. Arm processors are more efficient than x86, but Risc-v is even more efficient than Arm, giving them an edge in cheap, low power computing. However, some companies have started experimenting with Risc-v for HPC applications, so it's turning out more versatile than expected. Just this week there was also news of a bunch of companies banding together to develop Risc-v chips for automobile and Telecom, so don't be surprised if we get Risc-v smartphones and tablets in the near future.

[–] Rekhyt@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

#1: CISC has gone largely (entirely?) extinct

Citation needed? Isn't x86 considered a CISC?

[–] Cevedale@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes and no. AFAIK when coding assembler for these chips you use CISC-instructions but they get translated into RISC-instructions by a hardcoded mikroprocessing-unit (not sure about the real term). So the processor itself gets RISC-instructions.

[–] biblbrox@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

In reality it seems to be more complicated: https://fanael.github.io/is-x86-risc-internally.html

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