Wouldn’t that be a rather confusing name? i.e. by comparison with “Birch”
Regardless, if a RISC-V phone were even possible for Purism, it would be arguable that it would not be “Librem 5” and/or would not be “Librem 5 v2”. The point is that all indications are that Fir will be a drop-in replacement CPU with a smaller process from the same manufacturer, as far as this is possible. These are of course only my assumptions, and plans can change.
If Purism actually went RISC-V then they would need to make a decision as to the future of the ARM range. Do they abandon it? thereby causing difficulties for the stated support timeframes for the existing phones. Do they support both? thereby increasing support costs.
If they had both ranges then I would suggest keeping the “trees” for ARM and finding some other naming for RISC-V (but not “colours” since that is used for PureOS operating system code names).
While there is no shortage of topics in this forum that pontificate on RISC-V, you have to answer the fundamental question: What problem or limitation with the existing Librem 5 are you attempting to solve?
I understand the theoretical benefit of RISC-V but I think many customers would prioritise more storage and/or more RAM and/or quite a few other hardware considerations … ahead of changing the CPU architecture.
First i was think to open new thread to prevent conflict to Fir batch as Freescale arm s.o.cs. based, but Fir v2 could be brave Risc-V as Risc-V it using same arm concepts like Low Energy CPUs but diferent arch.
Librem 5 a.t.m is an Autonomous Device, so Purism may easy support both. Risc-V is fine now and is time to start abandon Arm.
The main to resolve is the Closed ISA from ARM.
For me the highest priority for Librem 5 would be to find more free hardware powersave controllers and optimize the sofware for great stamina
ATM Risc-V SoCs does not supporting Suspend to RAM, but may some fancy advantages than arm socs.
You’ll need to swap the motherboard PCB with that of a Liberty phone, as I hear that the PCB layout is different enough that an in-place chip upgrade is not possible.
I wish this were true, but the i.MX 8M Plus is a very different chip than the i.MX 8M Quad. It has added an NPU, ISP, DSP, 3D audio, video hardware encoding and secure keys, which means that it will take a lot of work to fully support it. Another problem is that an additional chip will need to be added in order to convert from HDMI to DisplayPort Alt-Mode. See: FAQ: 7.1 What will be the changes in the Fir batch and should I wait for it?
I guess Purism could use the Plus without supporting those new components, but using the ISP and video hardware encoding would substantially improve the camera and make it a lot more energy efficient.
The biggest advantage of the Plus is the fact that its FinFET 14nm node size should run cooler and consume less energy, compared to the planar 28nm in the Quad. In my opinion, the poor battery life and the excess heat are the biggest problems in the Librem 5. I would like to see Purism use the 800MHz secondary processor in the Plus to implement a new low power mode for the phone. That would dramatically lower the power draw for many tasks, and would allow the phone to receives messages over the WiFi that it currently can’t do when suspended, and avoid the problem with the cellular modem not always waking up and taking too long to wake up.
However, it will be difficult for Purism to raise the funds to undertake a redesign of the Librem 5. Purism can’t use crowdfunding to finance its new projects any more, due to the reputational hit that it took with the Librem 5. If Purism had the finances, it probably would have designed the Librem 11 based on the i.MX 8M Plus, rather than using an ODM design with an x86 processor. I’m hoping to see the Fir based on the Plus, but I’m skeptical that Purism can get the finances for it, and the market will be small for it.
I doubt that: Purism did fully reach shipping parity with the Librem 5 and can use it as proof of their crowdfunding campaign success, in spite of all of the obstacles encountered throughout its journey.
Also, Purism has other means to fund their operations as stated in their most recent investment email.
So SOC i.MX8M Plus planned for Fir could be overclocked and run stable to 2.0ghz=8ghz so that is a lot power, however Heat-Hardware-Management need to improved.
Also i know that this s.o.c has less power for g.p.u however this s.o.c has other fancy accelerator that the gpu missing does not matter at zero.
Point of order: could we have like a wiki or wikified thread that has a table that collects all the weird new-and-old suggestions from all the different threads from over the years…? We could then hash out how likely/doable/expensive/feasible/combustible they are…
I think an appendix containing various reference sheets would be a great asset for the community wiki. It would be tremendously helpful if the unanimous truths spread throughout the forum were organized there and curated by the community. Official documentation currently leaves much to be desired and will be expanded upon by Purism staff as time allows. (Community contributions via merge requests are also highly encouraged!!)
Do you have access to update the Wiki? I am not certain but I think that if you do then you can create a new page on the Wiki yourself. The problem might be that many forum participants do not have access to the Wiki, so those that do would end up copying text in on behalf of those that don’t.
I completely agree that good suggestions could easily get lost among the sea of posts.
I think wikified thread start post (like in the old “Promise delivery chart” thread) might be better to have competing suggestions voted and/or argued (like… “Should it be an L4 or L6?”). But would that deteriorate to just another thread…?
