[HN Gopher] RISC-V Mainboard for Framework Laptop 13 is now avai...
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       RISC-V Mainboard for Framework Laptop 13 is now available
        
       Author : WithinReason
       Score  : 90 points
       Date   : 2025-02-05 09:43 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (frame.work)
 (TXT) w3m dump (frame.work)
        
       | sylware wrote:
       | I don't think I can buy this in my country at a reasonable price.
       | 
       | It is very hard to pay online for me as amazon broke interop with
       | noscript/basic (x)html browsers a few years ago (and you can pay
       | using local wallet codes with using your credit card info
       | online).
        
         | mort96 wrote:
         | It's not difficult to use Firefox. You just don't want to.
        
       | IshKebab wrote:
       | Interesting CPU choice. Seems like it's actually intended for
       | image processing...
       | 
       | https://www.starfivetech.com/en/site/soc
        
         | picture wrote:
         | Consumer image/video processing is one of the few applications
         | where requirements of low cost, high performance, and tolerance
         | of poor software support and low reliability converge. It makes
         | a lot of sense that StarFive would target that application.
         | Most of the SoC vendors from China are competing in this same
         | space, like Allwinner, Rockchip, Goke, Ingenic, SigmaStar,
         | Ambarella, Fullhan, Xiongmai, etc.
        
       | plg wrote:
       | Q: why
        
         | geerlingguy wrote:
         | In this case, I'm guessing targeting a solid portable hardware
         | ecosystem at a development board. The chip on here is slow
         | enough it would be a slog for any kind of day to day use... but
         | if you're testing drivers for something or evaluating RISC-V
         | for some remote use case, a battery powered laptop is a little
         | more convenient than toting around a power supply and dev board
         | + enclosure.
         | 
         | I'm guessing the sales numbers will be extremely small--some
         | people who get excited about RISC-V and would consider buying
         | this don't know how slow it is in comparison to even the
         | cheapest Arm SBCs right now.
        
         | phendrenad2 wrote:
         | It seems to have no practical purpose. I assume someone funded
         | it to keep RISC-V in the spotlight.
        
         | kachapopopow wrote:
         | because that's why we went to the moon, why not?
        
           | conception wrote:
           | We went to the moon because we were losing an arms race and
           | the moon got the population onboard with spending 1% of the
           | gdp on it.
        
             | brendoelfrendo wrote:
             | So the takeaway is that spending funds on an arms race is
             | pretty unpopular, but it turns out that people think cool
             | shit is cool and worth it?
        
       | ThinkBeat wrote:
       | Cool. Now make a mainboard with a POWER 10 (IBM)
       | 
       | and
       | 
       | something like the Altra Max M128
       | 
       | Would probably need to create a "hood", extender between the case
       | and they keyboard to fit. and increase the fans a it </s>
        
         | MrDrMcCoy wrote:
         | I would legit love to have a POWER10 laptop. No reason it
         | couldn't be scaled down to laptop power profiles, though I have
         | no idea who would provide a GPU for it.
        
         | cassepipe wrote:
         | https://www.phoronix.com/news/IBM-POWER10-Not-All-Open-FW
         | 
         | Sadly POWER10 is not entirely open and the reasonning behind
         | having a power laptop/computer was to have an entirely open
         | computer
        
       | kristopolous wrote:
       | I was just looking at modern Thinkpad T14 offerings (Gen6). They
       | offer ARM snapdragon and AMD. No Intel.
       | https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/c/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadt/
       | 
       | Times are changing
        
       | mrobot wrote:
       | They put the old (55WH vs the newer 61WH) battery in the shell --
       | Framework you cheapos! I guess they are trying to get rid of the
       | old, smaller batteries.
       | 
       | Also, word of warning just don't apply the 3.08 bios update if
       | you have a 12th gen. I've had nothing but problems with the 3.08
       | bios update without real remediation from framework. Really,
       | don't perform this upgrade without doing a thorough review of the
       | support forums regarding the issues people are having.
       | 
       | There was a blog post about the BIOS update that i found here on
       | this site, but i'm having trouble finding it for reference now.
       | Someone had the same issue as i have where sometimes my system
       | just won't boot (no video and error sequence) unless i remove or
       | re-add a memory module. Not that fun.
        
         | adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
         | IMO that's a smart choice. This cpu isn't made to be a daily
         | driver. It only is in a laptop chasis to make R&D easier. No
         | one will miss the extra 5WH
        
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       (page generated 2025-02-08 23:00 UTC)