Framework laptops get modular makeover with RISC-V main board
Framework CEO Nirav Patel had one of the bravest tech demos that we've seen at a conference yet – modifying a Framework Laptop from x86 to RISC-V live on stage. In the five-minute duration of one of the Ubuntu Summit's Lightning Talks, he opened up a Framework machine, removed its motherboard, installed a RISC-V-powered replacement, reconnected it, and closed the machine up again. All while presenting the talk live, and pretty much without hesitation, deviation, or repetition. It was an impressive performance, and you can watch it yourself at the 8:56:30 mark in the video recording.
(At the end of the talk, you can just about make out the dulcet bellow of The Reg FOSS desk asking to see the board-swapped machine being turned on.)
Now DeepComputing is taking orders for the DC-ROMA board, at least to those in its early access program. The new main board is powered by a StarFive JH7110 System-on-Chip. (Note: there are two tabs on the page, for both the JH7100 and JH7710, and we can't link directly to the latter.) CNX Software has more details about the SoC.
Although the SoC has six CPU cores, two are dedicated processors, making it a quad-core 64-bit device. The four general-purpose cores are 64-bit and run at up to 1.5 GHz. It supports 8 GB of RAM and eMMC storage. We did in fact drop by the company's stand, as invited by the MC, to try out a different laptop with the same SoC, running the latest release of Ubuntu with GNOME.
