Computer scientist showcases world's first RISC-V-based Linux PC coupled with an AMD RX 6700 XT GPU

[Redaktion]

René Rebe managed to patch the Linux kernel to support the RISC-V processor along with the AMD RX 6700 XT card in around 10 hours. The GPU is not exactly fully functional, as it cannot yet run games, but it can render the GUI, 3D elements and also decode hi-res videos.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-scientist-showcases-world-s-first-RISC-V-based-Linux-PC-coupled-with-an-AMD-RX-6700-XT-GPU.552002.0.html

[t4n0n]

ARM architecture that might not remain open source for too long,

ARM's architecture isn't open source, fyi. It's a licensed architecture, that requires a license to use or modify. The only difference with Nvidia owning it is that now one of the licensees will be the license holder.

[_MT_]

ARM's architecture isn't open source, fyi. It's a licensed architecture, that requires a license to use or modify. The only difference with Nvidia owning it is that now one of the licensees will be the license holder.

Open source is not the same as free. It literary means that source codes are available to everyone. You don't need to be a privileged partner or sign an NDA. You don't have to decompile a binary. You might want to publish source codes for peer review or transparency but retain rights otherwise. You might offer free licences for non-commercial use but have paid licences for commercial use. Etc. And it's strange to talk of open source when it comes to an instruction set or silicon IP. It's an expression specific to programs as humans generally don't write machine code. We use compilers to transform code written in higher level languages (source) into machine code for a processor to chew on. Information can be lost in this process which is irrelevant to the machine but which can help humans make heads and tails of the code.