Profiles worked well for Bluetooth standards, at least. Within a device category (stereo headphones, headsets, mice, keyboards, …), the devices are mostly interchangeable (except for sometimes missing optional add-ons, like better audio codecs that improve quality); those standards for the profiles, and the on-purpose interoperability testing, have a lot to do with why. Of course Bluetooth itself can also be used for new categories of devices that don’t fit the existing profiles, just as riscv is popular for embedded devices that aren’t very pc-like and probably won’t run common OSes.
We are hoping that RVA23 will become the new baseline for riscv processors, since it’s the baseline for Ubuntu 26.04. SpacemiT K1 is only missing a little of it; K3 has it all. So since 9front is mostly for real computers (not microcontrollers and small-memory embedded systems), it seems a decent fit; that’s what we’re shooting for with the port. Not supporting anything older makes it cleaner, in theory; that’s Ron’s point to make, and I haven’t dug deeply into what it would take to support the older ones. But otherwise I like the idea of making use of things as much as possible rather than adding to the ewaste pile; except everything that you keep running takes electricity and space (in the world and in your head), and there’s never enough time either. (Maybe I want to do a port of Inferno to the Zaurus devices: I still have some. Do I have time though? Heh. Do I even have a real use for it? I’m not sure.) I do need to spend some time with Geoff’s kernel and understand better whether it’s actually clean in spite of supporting older buggier hardware, and what it gives up; it will be nice to have something to run on my VisionFive 2 at least. Anybody else here running it? ------------------------------------------ 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Tbf390d3a51f65cdf-M1611070ee9c44f687e125e10 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
