When they start making affordable arm or risc motherboards that can take pcie cards and ram sticks, then I'll be interested. The "pi" motherboard form factor has its place but we need better stuff.
TL;Dr licensed firmware is garbo - open firmware ftw
This - is what we need.
The only ones who can really push the envelope on getting RISC-V into the hands of consumer, and indeed up to an IPC comparable to ARM, are companies like Deep Computing and Si-Five.
The biggest problem in the computing world, bar none, are not the predatory companies, vendor lockins, or proprietary operating systems, it's always been licensing. This is why BSD existed in the first place, because a $1000 a month per seat to copy a file without pulling and pushing bits around is a bit too much, even if it was the 70s.
Similarly, in a time of green washing, eWaste and even planned obsolescence, one of the things that help to underpin all of these afformentioned evils is secret sauce firmware.
No matter what you say, if you don't have access to the source code for firmware and bootloaders, you've got a lifetime set by the vendor based on how long they can actually support the hardware - because employees cost money. You can't realistically expect a company to support something they're not making money on anymore, and they'd most likely just want to sell you new hardware.
This is where RISC-V comes in swinging. I'm not saying that all RISC-V hardware will come with open firmware, but the ball is rolling and with it we can finally bridge the gap spanned by tech companies, where the average Jane or Joe can in effect easily modify their firmware code, albeit through security principles of course.
Unlike Open Source, Open Firmware is a bit trickier. Decades of industrial precedent, and indeed vendor lockins the OEM's are beholden to, like proprietary BIOS, makes it that much harder to establish - especially when designing an entire ISA and getting it to prefab is a Lord of the Rings length journey. There is no griffin shortcut.
No doubt I'll have naysayers. Just mentioning open firmware in the average matrix chat riles the gallery, as is the style, but even the likes of NVIDIA are opening up their code (thanks, AI) to the point where NVK is not that far from stable, untainting your kernel. Yay.
Everybody ♥️ open source, don't they? But how about giving some love to Open Firmware? In the FUTURE 🐙 we'll hopefully have vendors and foreign interests shoved tf out of our hardware, and good riddance, because they shouldn't be in control of it in the first place.
I await your ire.
And shout outs to the libreboot maintainer. What in the ever loving Carmack is FSF up to? Libre ain't a brand, it's a philosophy.
I was already eyeing the Framework, but this was my one single wish that I had for it to be perfect!
Edit: After reading the article, I realize that RISC-V isn't nearly mature enough to be an instant replacement for x86_64. However, I'm still glad that Framework upholds open standards and give people easier access to develop for them too.
It's gonna be a while before RISC-V (and the accompanying software) is ready for consumers, but this is a great step towards that goal. Framework is the perfect development plattform, due to the modularity.
I'm super excited about this, didn't expect it to happen so soon.
I expected to see risc v processors first in embedded devices, like routers and cameras, then moving to smart devices, like tvs and smartwatches, then to phones and then desktops. But looks like there won't be a clear line, and things will come concurrently.
Holy shit! I did not see that coming. I just got the mainboard case to convert my fw13 so it can be stashed away on my homelab for some ancillary services. Assuming the price is right, I’ll have to consider grabbing one to put in my now-empty laptop! Very exciting.
Targeting developers is, I dunno, misses the audience. It would have been a great netbook, or a Raspberry Pi replacement.
If I develop something for Risc-V arch, it is probably some embedded thing with 100 MHz CPU and 2 Mb RAM, and I am cross-compiling it anyway on my more powerful PC.
So if I'm developing a garage door opener using ESP32 RISC-V module, I'm not a RISC-V developer? The dev tools and the cross-compiler only come in x86_64 variant, they simply won't work on RISC-V laptop. But at least they provide a Linux installer.
The only use case I can think of is to build Debian packages on a target architecture without cross-compilation, because many packages do not support cross-compilation, but it's more an issue of poor build scripts.
RIEC-V is as far as I know very new as a processor.
This means most of your software that works on Linux, Windows, Mac, Android or anything similar doesn't do so on the new processor.
This means you need developer who will port it or write new software for it. While crosscompiling is possible it is usually easier to have real hardware to test on. Not even to write the software on that device. You still can write it on your x86-64 pc and then either compile it on the RISC-V pc or crosscompile and test it only on the RISC-V pc.
For people who want to do this,it is targeted I think.
IMO this device is more of a prototype for working out issues with risc-v in a framework chassis. Not really for doing practical work at this point. Could mean that framework expects a powerful risc-v chip in the next few years, and wants to lay the groundwork for that now.
Why are linux folk so crazy about Framework Laptops? I can understand windows users being crazy about it, but linux users? Aren't they still second class citizens to frame.work?
Ah, my information is outdated. Back when they started it was only possible to get windows on it. They seem to have completely embraced linux, which is nice.
In addition to what Blisterex said, the open-source hardware ethos is very similar to the Linux open-source software ethos, so it attracts a similar crowd
"almost all of the most technical employees in framework are using either ubuntu, fedora or nixos. I'm mostly on Windows because we need actually people that are using Windows because our employee base in framework is all Linux users"
This will be my first Framework, already preordered a few weeks ago.
They finally offer a 120 Hz display, and while it has slightly rounded corners which isn't ideal, but I'll take the 120 Hz with VRR and higher resolution over perfect corners. They explained they had to use a panel that was already on the market because they don't have enough volume that they can afford to order a custom display and with the Framework 13 using a 3:2 aspect ratio options were apparently very limited.
They also offer a keyboard with the Super key having a neutral label (not a Windows logo) now.
The new webcam is apparently quite a lot better, but I don't care too much about that.
I went for the i5 125H model, I think the difference of almost 400,-€ to the i7 155H isn't worth it for most use cases, as you only get 2 more P cores (with all other core clusters being identical, I think 4+8+2 vs. 6+8+2) and 8 instead of 7 GPU CUs. I feel the difference will be negligible for my use case as soon as it hits power/thermal limits anyway. This also seems to be the stop-gap generation of CPUs, with both AMD and Intel appearing to make noticeable steps forward in the generation.
There's also the AMD model which is great and got most upgrades the Ultra model did (new display, webcam and keyboard options), only missing out on a slightly improved cooling system. Between the i7 and R7 I probably would've gone for the Ryzen 7, but I feel the i5 is the better choice compared to the Ryzen 5, primarily because the iGPU is stripped quite a bit compared to the R7. Intel is also less restrictive on which expansion slot supports what, with every port supporting full USB 4 including DisplayPort. Not a big deal as there are still enough fully-featured slots on the AMD model, but it's a bit more convenient to just plug in any card anywhere and it works.
Depending on how you treat it, it might also be your last. So far, Framework has offered upgrades to their existing customers so they don't have to buy a completely new notebook to upgrade.
Oh yeah, looking forward to hopefully many years of platform support. They'll obviously have to switch to different memory modules (as an example) at some point (CAMM should be next), but I hope they keep the board compatible with the case, modules, I/O and display for as long as anyhow possible.
I'm coming from a ThinkPad T490 and if that would've been a Framework which I could just upgrade from the i7 8565u to a Core Ultra or Ryzen 7000, I wouldn't need/want a new notebook and could simply upgrade.
120 hz dynamically allocated, which means when you read text or do office work you save energy on a lower frame rate, and when you need higher frame rates for scrolling, movie or gaming it automatically increases it up to 120 hz. 120 hz on a 4 k display is something you can't get from other brands. I have to uprade from my Lenovo X1 Carbon and have to buy a complete new Laptop just to get more RAM, but would have to downgrade the display as Lenovo doesn't offer good display options in their Laptops anymore. I'm not going to sacrifice my eye sight to save Lenovo production costs. Fortunately, there is Framework now with their user orientated approach. And in the future, I won't have to throw away a perfectly working high quality display and keyboard just to upgrade RAM, CPU, or ports, as all components can be swapped and independently upgraded on a Framework.
Lenovo has been weird for many years now with their built-to-order configuration options. They often announce 4 to 5 display options when in reality maybe 2 or 3 are available, and some of them only in combination with some weird other configuration options. Then it also depends on country of order.
frame.work
Hot