On 4/12/23 10:08, przemek klosowski via devel wrote:
That may rule out certain processors, but it ultimately provides a
higher performing baseline architecture for systems that are
(hopefully) going to be good performing parts rather than embedded
focused parts.
Yes, good point, but there's already a number of profiles even though
they are barely out of the gate:
https://github.com/riscv/riscv-profiles/blob/main/profiles.adoc
I know. While I'm not involved in setting the profiles, I do get
briefed on them reasonably often.
I of course agree with you that it makes sense to focus support on a
small number of existing platforms with good reputation and performance
(for instance both VisionFive and Pine64 are based on StarFive JH7110 SoC).
Those are not particularly interesting in my mind for a distro target.
If it can't run a performant system I'd put on my desk or in my rack,
then it's an embedded target in my mind (yes, I'm over-generalizing).
There's a place for those, but I don't think that should be Fedora's
focus for RISC-V.
Full disclosure. I work for Ventana and have a long history with Red
Hat and Fedora. My vision for Fedora going back before it was actually
launched as for a desktop/developer focused distribution similar to RHL,
but free -- and as a feeder distribution into what was then known as
Advanced Server, now RHEL.
Still, it would be neat if there was a good technical solution for
subarchitecture diversity because there will be more of it in the
future. Jim Keller, the prolific CPU designer who worked on DEC Alpha,
AMD K7 and Zen, Intel, Tesla, and Apple, has an interesting talk where
he justifies going to RISC-V architecture because it is so much easier
to extend it for high performance on specific tasks:
The fragmentation will kill RISC-V from a distro standpoint if it's not
brought under control -- and I had that position well before I joined
the RISC-V world. Profiles are a step, but by no means a complete
solution. Distros are terrible at supporting ISA customizations.
heff
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