@xcyndi.bsky.social

And this is Layla (who used to be called Qiqi)! :D
She is a Milk-V Mars and has this beautiful white PCB.

While her SoC (JH7110) is RISC-V and not very powerful (no vector extensions, for example), she does have a ton of RAM (8 GB).
I mainly use her as a personal development machine, that I can connect to remotely. For that she runs Cockpit, VSCodium, and KasmVNC, so I can use both graphical and terminal applications.
She also runs some of my CI jobs, even though finding RISC-V compatible images for each step can be challenging.

With the PowerVR BXE-4-32 she also got a powerful GPU, but getting the drivers for it on a modern kernel with Ubuntu's config was a pain in the ass and required building and even further patching the kernel supplied by Starfive (https://github.com/starfive-tech/linux/tree/JH7110_VisionFive2_6.12.y_devel and https://github.com/JnCrMx/milkv-mars-linux ).
Sadly, the userspace drivers are still closed source tho…
I for example, utilize the GPU to automatically render previews of one of my projects using a CI pipeline: https://github.com/JnCrMx/xmbshell (https://github.com/JnCrMx/xmbshell/blob/main/.woodpecker/test.yml ).
If anyone is interested in the stats of the device and its driver, check out the gpuinfo.org report I submitted for it: https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/displayreport.php?id=39359

In order to get the best possible performance out of her (and since I don't need an external GPU), I am using the M.2 slot for a 1 TB NVMe SSD that she boots from.
Getting it to work also required some debugging, and it turns out setting pci=noaer in the kernel command line makes things work.

Her being RISC-V also adds some limitations, but I thankfully managed to find a working Firefox version and the overall software support is always getting better.
Box64 is also an absolute lifesaver for running proprietary x86 apps.

Overall, despite her shortcomings, she is one of my favorite SBCs, especially since I had to solve so many issues to get her to run well.
If anyone also owns this board (or one with the same SoC) I would love to talk a bit about its GPU and maybe someone even got the open source drivers to work, which would be the dream.

I saw there's a #qrv64 kernel for #Plan9 #riscv #riscv64 from a master's thesis I'm reading

Has anyone tried #RISC #9Front ? I'm curious if the #MilkV #MilkVMars could run everything either natively or under #QEMU; I just flashed the board I'm using with #Debian from #StarFive to make sure it boots and functions

It might be unstable, but it might also outperform my #RaspberryPi "9Pi3B"

Yeeaaaaaah buddy! I got the #MilkVMars back up and running on good ol #Debian.

I have to say #Gnome is growing on me for #SBC use. I like how it focuses me more since many SBC are limited in resources and are not great at multitasking.

#Neofetch #BTop #RISCV

Bricked my #MilkVMars set up a day or two ago. Currently trying out an updated version of #DietPi for #RISCV.

Let’s see how this fairs….

I might brick my #MilkVMars setup by adding the standard #Sid repos in addition to the original #StarFive specilized repo that came with the iso.

I guess I am feeling a bit adventurous.

I had to redo the thermals on the #MilkVMars mini tower; it sat about a hair too high to make contact with the thermal pad. Fixed that and all is good.Typically it is hanging around 42C, but I got it to peak at 60C when I had the cpu almost at max capacity (opening #FireFox). It dropped down by 10C within seconds.

#RISCV #Neofetch #Btop

Now that I got a functional OS up and running on the #MilkVMars, I can say it is a fun little machine.

#RISCV #SBC #Neofetch