I’ve came across an ongoing campaign for a PowerPC desktop board from the PowerPC Notebook project. This made me wondering what does Purism pursue with respect to CPU architecture. Is disabling Intel ME in the new CPUs expected to remain feasible in the long run? If not, does Purism bet on Power or RISC-V? There was a forum post that suggested that RISC-V is being considered. Would it be one over the other?
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For the avoidance of doubt … I in no way speak for Purism.
I think there must be significant risk that it will not remain feasible in the long run (but of course I can’t predict the future). For sure, Intel has been moving this in the wrong direction.
Other options:
- stick with x86 i.e. suck it up
- ARM
I’m fairly sure that the next few products / product versions that you will see will be based on their respective existing architectures, but I guess you are asking about the longer term.
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ARM and RISC-V are Bottlenecks arch.
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Have you contacted Purism directly yet?
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I have reached out to them now. I will post here if I get a response.
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I received no reply from Purism. Is NXP T2080, T4240, or something any good for a Purism product? What do you think?
The online documentation from NXP for T2080 suggests that the ETH PHY in T2080 requires loadable FMan Microcode to initialize. That has to be installed together with U-Boot. So, the SoC requires proprietary firmware for the Ethernet, right?
I tried asking PowerPC notebook project about that. But I am getting blocked by SPAM prevention routines on their website and in the forum. Does anyone has access to the forum? Could anyone suggest another way to contact them?
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NXP droped Powerpc from 2015, in favor of Arm.
This microcode does not mean closed, as far i know it was opened on 2018. The only BLOB remain it is ethernet acelerator, which it is not needed for home use.
https://forums.puri.sm/t/free-software-g-n-u/30271/6?u=carlosgonz
On last months i worked a lot to get BE things better mostly to the power big endian browser Arcticfox which at the moment i looking to enable opengl accelerator which is broken for BE.
Also reported 3D bugs on lower radeon 9600 which r300 still can pull it, as 9600 only support 64 alus which do not aprove to glamor from r300, however someone worked on glamor side to pull the rest of alus from cpu, to make glxgears work as glxgears ship gradient on the green gear which 9600 can not do, so under r300 and full glamor support it needed radeon X700+ gpus which ships more ALUs to get hardware aceleration gradient, however i do not like 2D from glamor because it is not efficient, so for 2D BLT is best one which it is only supported on Etnaviv. or EXA.
Recently i fixed all bug on Arcticfox which prevented to boot on newer Gnu OSes shipping fontconfig 2.17. For this purpuse i used Gnu grep which imho it is the best high level bug killer tools.
Also the Hero tle a powerpc pirate prog is making icecat base supporting big endian. Recently tle fixed and enabled full VSX, JIT WASM, aceleration on icecat base for Super PowerPC Little Endian,
Lattice together Raptor Engeneering is working to cooking a Power11 unIBM CPU unserver computer 101% Libre, which will the best of the best powerpc computer never made.
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That is impressibe.
Thank you for your work.
NXP manufactures processors on Power architecture. The existing processors are on extended support till February 2035. The PowerPC notebook project uses NXP T2080 for its desktop design. But new processors from NXP are ARM. In 2019, NXP already recommended ARM instead of Power for new designs. So, NXP processors on Power architecture are probably not appropriate for new Purism products.
A new processor will only be available to Raptor, not Purism?
Does Ethernet work without initialized ETH PHY in T2080? I did not find the microcode opened.
In 2018, they could not start Ethernet on a development board. It could be because they only installed U-Boot without the microcode.
- Not figured out (yet) how to go online using the T2080rdb onboard ethernet ports.
They included the microcode binaries later to their repository.
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Unfortunately I have not seen any news re:Pine64’s Pinetab2 RISC-V which seems to be the most advanced open device running risc-v currently.
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Yes.
Arm is killing powerpc, despite the arm bottlenecks.
I do not know thats.
The firmware it is to a extra ethernet acelerator chip, but the ethernet work without the blobs on normal ethernet speed.
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Yes it is a OMG soc. I willl be honest with you riabenko i am very anxious to have T2080.
Do you have any powerpc computer or you looking for one?
Why Purism will not make a laptop or a mini with it?
T2080 will be available at least till 2035. It comes from NXP. Purism already buys processors from NXP for Librem 5. Aren’t they interested to expand collaboration to other products in place of Intel?
The PowerPC notebook project wants to use T2080 in a laptop after making a desktop with it.
- We plan to use a mainstream 15,6″ notebook chassis : Slimbook Eclipse notebook case 15,6”
Purism could make a laptop with Purism hallmark high level of security. Absence of a consumer Intel CPU would ensure even higher security, right?
To try T2080 now, it is possible with T2080RDB development board or with a ready-to-use T2080RDB-PC.
I do not have a Power computer yet. I am studying options.
I do not know, but it is not easy decision considering that all users are LOCKED into x86, even Linux Opensource mainline it has LOCKED something to prevent newer GPUs work on PowerPC:
So i on talk to gnulinux fsfla to enable this patchset to ppc.
The patchset itself looks quite straightforward, however I don't know
why this isn't included in the kernel in years, so make it a RFC.
T2080 do not want to boot on Laptop, due to a bug that either nxp understand, so they have postponed it until later in favor for a Desktop.
Yes it will very high level security and unique.
Yes, however there are project which making nxp powerpc computer like: x5000 and the upcomming: mirari, however theses do not shipping newest T2080, but still very interesting.
Powerpc is really nice on everything. Raptor Computer it is more complex to use, so to start i can recommend you a Powermac G5 which i have many and work Butter on Gnu Debian Forky and full compatible with Gnu system via nvidia gpu. I even have motorola powerpc 32bits on powerbook g4 working like a Butter on Gnu Debian Forky which i am using at the moment because it work really nice which enabled me to report bugs as glxgears crashes and 3D bugs.
Firefox has been ported to Big Endian PPC, however still not hardware acceleracion because there is not any gpu driver supporting gles3 on PPCBE.
Radeon cayman gpu it is the only light on the horizon for gles3 for ppc., but tons linux blobs for.
In fact PPC do not need any gpu accel as Altivec it is Super Power.
I just got an email from Purism titled “Purism Progress Update: CHIPS Act, PQC, Librem 5 v2, and Investment Opportunities“ which contains the following paragraph:
Purism has been pre-approved for funding under the U.S. CHIPS Act to produce the Librem Core-V, expanding our product line to support RISC-V and expand U.S.-based chip manufacturing! The approval process still requires months of work to finalize, but this is an extremely important first step. Over $50 million is budgeted in the proposal.
Timeframe estimate: before year-end 2026
@irvinewade Any infos beyond what stands in the email? I didn’t find any blog post or something on the website.
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I haven’t seen any other info. Since this is apparently being funded by the US taxpayer, perhaps there is a US government web site somewhere that contains information about this program and the (potential) recipients of funding and their proposals.
I marked your question as the solution to my original question because it confirms that Purism intends to “expand to RISC-V”. Now, a more focused discussion with a more precise title could continue in a separate new thread, and probably have a higher chance to attract more attention.