[Qemu-devel] RISC-V platform

[Qemu-devel] RISC-V platform

[G 3]

Hi, I noticed your RISC-V patches on the mailing list and had a  
question that I think you may be able to answer. Has anyone defined a  
RISC-V platform yet? What I mean is defining what devices would be  
found on a RISC-V motherboard. I do hope to see RISC-V based desktop  
systems one day. But before that day can come the platform for this  
chip would have to be established. Could the SiFive board be the  
basis for such a standard?

Re: [Qemu-devel] RISC-V platform

[Alistair Francis]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 2:05 PM, G 3 <programmingkidx@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, I noticed your RISC-V patches on the mailing list and had a question
> that I think you may be able to answer. Has anyone defined a RISC-V platform
> yet? What I mean is defining what devices would be found on a RISC-V
> motherboard. I do hope to see RISC-V based desktop systems one day. But
> before that day can come the platform for this chip would have to be
> established. Could the SiFive board be the basis for such a standard?

It really depends what you mean by a standard platform. At the moment
the SiFive HiFive Unleased board is the only ASIC that can boot Linux.
So that really is the "standard" RISC-V board. It is a pretty basic
embedded board though, so it can't be considered a "standard" RISC-V
desktop. There is a virt board in QEMU (which is similar to the HiFive
Unleashed) that is a good go to for QEMU work.

Alistair

Re: [Qemu-devel] RISC-V platform

[Palmer Dabbelt]

On Fri, 29 Jun 2018 14:20:34 PDT (-0700), alistair23@gmail.com wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 2:05 PM, G 3 <programmingkidx@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi, I noticed your RISC-V patches on the mailing list and had a question
>> that I think you may be able to answer. Has anyone defined a RISC-V platform
>> yet? What I mean is defining what devices would be found on a RISC-V
>> motherboard. I do hope to see RISC-V based desktop systems one day. But
>> before that day can come the platform for this chip would have to be
>> established. Could the SiFive board be the basis for such a standard?
>
> It really depends what you mean by a standard platform. At the moment
> the SiFive HiFive Unleased board is the only ASIC that can boot Linux.
> So that really is the "standard" RISC-V board. It is a pretty basic
> embedded board though, so it can't be considered a "standard" RISC-V
> desktop. There is a virt board in QEMU (which is similar to the HiFive
> Unleashed) that is a good go to for QEMU work.

The HiFive Unleashed is the defacto standard RISC-V embedded Linux platform 
right now, but there will be a RISC-V platform specification that defines 
proper standard platforms of various types.  This effort hasn't been started 
yet, but it should be done sooner rather than later.

Re: [Qemu-devel] RISC-V platform

[Programmingkid]

> On Aug 2, 2018, at 5:07 PM, Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@sifive.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 29 Jun 2018 14:20:34 PDT (-0700), alistair23@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 29, 2018 at 2:05 PM, G 3 <programmingkidx@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi, I noticed your RISC-V patches on the mailing list and had a question
>>> that I think you may be able to answer. Has anyone defined a RISC-V platform
>>> yet? What I mean is defining what devices would be found on a RISC-V
>>> motherboard. I do hope to see RISC-V based desktop systems one day. But
>>> before that day can come the platform for this chip would have to be
>>> established. Could the SiFive board be the basis for such a standard?
>> 
>> It really depends what you mean by a standard platform. At the moment
>> the SiFive HiFive Unleased board is the only ASIC that can boot Linux.
>> So that really is the "standard" RISC-V board. It is a pretty basic
>> embedded board though, so it can't be considered a "standard" RISC-V
>> desktop. There is a virt board in QEMU (which is similar to the HiFive
>> Unleashed) that is a good go to for QEMU work.
> 
> The HiFive Unleashed is the defacto standard RISC-V embedded Linux platform right now, but there will be a RISC-V platform specification that defines proper standard platforms of various types.  This effort hasn't been started yet, but it should be done sooner rather than later.

I definitely agree it should come soon. I realize the QEMU community could start this effort rather easily by developing a machine and then porting software to it. I'm thinking something easy we could do is take the IBM PC standard and apply it with a RISC-V CPU. Hardware vendors could then take that emulated machine and turn it into a real machine. Linux distros could then be made to run on this platform. The future looks exciting for this CPU.