This seems to be positioning Ubuntu as a data center OS. There are several RVA23 chips due out but they are all for the data center (tenstorrent, Alibaba, ventana, etc).
There is the SiFive P870 but I do not think anybody has licensed that so it may never get made.
I have also heard rumours of Expressif chips but I do not know the details.
Year of the RISCV Linux Desktop
…except there’s no hardware to run it on. They’ve chosen an ISA profile that’s not been decided on for long enough.
Exactly. The article says that 90% of hardware doesn’t run on it, but in reality, 100% of hardware doesn’t run on it. Only Qemu supports it, which is an emulator (and very slow to emulate RiscV in my experience – latest version we tried with my husband on a very fast PC).
The Orange Pi RV2 was the perfect introductory Risc-V SBC, everyone is going gaga for it, for being a good middle of the road solution for those who want to try Risc-V, and yet, Ubuntu won’t support it (and even the current implementation is done by the Chinese, not by Canonical, so I wouldn’t touch it).
So I’m not sure what they’re thinking. My own conspiracy theory is that EITHER Canonical, OR Raspberry Pi (which are close geographically), are preparing RV23 hardware, so they want to undercut the competition that way.
Nothing else makes sense in that decision.
