SiFive and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS: Linux distribution officially runs on RISC-V CPUs

The latest edition of the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu from British distributor Canonical now officially runs on processors with SiFive’s RISC-V architecture and StarFive’s single-board computers based on it. For the first time, both companies offer official support for the open source platform.

Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS for SiFive RISC-V Processors

At the RISC-V Summit 2021 industry meeting, the company StarFive, co-founded by SiFive, presented the VisionFive V1, a compact single-board computer with the RISC-V processor StarFive JH7100 for AI applications under Linux, which has two processor cores and 8 GB LPDDR4 at 100 × 72 mm. On this system, Canonical and SiFive, and StarFive now offer official support for the free operating system Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (“Jammy Jellyfish”) for the first time. Cindy Goldberg, vice president of Silicon Alliance at Canonical, and Thomas Xu, founder and CEO of StarFive, announced in a joint announcement that SiFive, StarFive, and Canonical are working together to advance Ubuntu and Linux on the RISC-V architecture.

Ubuntu is the most popular open source operating system and we are excited to expand support for the RISC-V open source community. Canonical and StarFive team up to create an enterprise-grade Ubuntu image for the new VisionFive board, bringing together open source software and open source hardware for developers to run a wide variety of computer vision applications on the edge. to build. Can’t wait to see what developers build with this VisionFive board and Ubuntu. Cindy Goldberg, Vice President of Silicon Alliance, Canonical

The first system to be officially supported, the StarFive VisionFive V1, comes in the familiar format of single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi and has the following specifications: StarFive VisionFive V1

• StarFive JH7100 RISC-V System-on-a-chip
• SiFive U74 dual core 1.5GHz
• 2MB L2 cache
• 64-bit
• 2×4GB LPDDR4-2800 SDRAM
• 4 × USB 3.2 Gen1 5Gbps
• IEEE 802.11n at 2.4GHz
• Gigabit Ethernet
• 100×72mm

Via the 40-pin known from the Raspberry Pi GPIO connector and two MIPI-DSI and CSI connections, compatible displays and cameras can be connected to the single board computer.

Teaser (Photo: SiFive/StarFive) Using the integrated Neural Network Engine for AI algorithms and the Nvidia Deep Learning Accelerator (NVDLA), the StarFive VisionFive V1 would be particularly suitable for AI-assisted processing of camera data, as stated by the manufacturer being in context Lecture (PDF) explained at the 2021 RISC-V Summit.

Ubuntu for RISC-V is available for download

Ubuntu Server 22.04.1 LTS in the RISC-V version, which can be downloaded directly from Canonical, runs on RISC-V systems from SiFive, StarFive, and Allwinner. The official provides more information press release.