This $149 RISC-V Tablet Runs Ubuntu 24.04
This $149 RISC-V Tablet Runs Ubuntu 24.04
DeepComputing has unveiled a new version of its DC-ROMA RISC-V tablet — and this one runs Ubuntu! The DC-ROMA RISC-V Pad II boasts a 10.1
The link makes it seem like crap hardware, and sure 4gb of ram is really crappy. But how does this compare with one of my kid's Fire tablets? Does anyone have opinions on that?
Linux is not replacing Android tablets any time soon for casual use by non-techies. Especially on RISC-V, where not much software has been packaged to that architecture. Even ARM or X86 tablets don't have much tablet-oriented software available. Most DEs are pretty shit at tablet style navigation.
It will gather dust, I guarantee it. Maybe someday Linux will be there, but it won't be soon. And I've tried several times with several devices to make that happen.
Sure, it's not perfect, but there is still probably use cases there. For me personally, I prefer using roll20 to store my character sheets for D&D, and my peace of shit 15 year old laptop just isn't cutting it anymore. I don't think this is a $150 use case, but if the price of this tablet were to come down I'd have second thoughts.
You could get a decent lightweight netbook type machine that’s maybe under a decade old and only have to shell out like $30 and you could Linux it just fine. Until not long ago I was using a 13 year old Toshiba laptop and it was kicking ass. I only replaced it because for sheer cpu power I just needed something faster for certain things.
I'm still waiting for somebody to release a Linux tablet with an immutable distro and Waydroid pre-installed.
Could be a killer product for productivity. Solid linux distro for desktop usage with the possibility to seamlessly open Android apps on demand.
Linux is not replacing Android tablets any time soon for casual use by non-techies.
Meanwhile PineTab 2 is used nearly daily here, at home and while traveling, by non-techies.
I'm not saying anybody is fine with a Linux tablet... but if the applications (not "apps") one actually uses function properly on it, no reason that it would gather dust.
PS: tinkered with a Banana Pi BPI-F3 with SpacemiT K1 8 core RISC-V and for that architecture specifically I would wait just a bit more, also why I didn't get a PineTab V RISC.
I also have a Pinetab 2 and now after a year I'd say it's in a pretty good state.
However, if you just want a tablet, a similarly priced Android tablet will run circles around it in responsiveness and feel. (I have a Xiaoxin Pad pro 2022/Lenovo Pad M10 3rd gen)
Re RISC-V: AFAIK the new SpacemiT chips are the first actually usulable ones. The older and more common JH7110 has half the cores and way lower feature level. Like, no floating points and other extensions that are essential for modern computing.
DEs need to embrace tiling functionality and transparent windows (eg. playing a YT video under your LibreOffice window). It's the only proper way to use a tablet. Obviously KDE's Windows-like taskbar is a nightmare for tablets but even Android's "deck of window cards" is crappy for anything that you couldn't just as well do on a smartphone.
I had Ubuntu on two of my ASUS transformer pads and I finally caved and went back to Android-x86 on the one that I use as a tablet more frequently. I really wish someone would make a proper full fledged touch distro for tablets, and at the same time I totally get why nobody has gone to the effort yet. Android kinda has it covered enough. I tried Bliss but some elements of the OS just would not play nice.
I think if any DE is close enough to what a tablet should have it’s Unity, and I don’t see anyone trying to bring that up to speed with Wayland etc. but it seems to be the best candidate short of making a DE from scratch - which might just be the best idea when all is said and done.
I don't think you can get a good quality Android tablet with more than 4gb for $150 either so it's an actually interesting deal for some people.
Samsung A9+ goes on sale for about $150 every once in a while.
Kids FireHD tablets are generally lower than that. There's not really any difference between the adult and kids version tbh.
Lenovo M series/Xiaoxin Pad is about that price with 4gb.
I have the 8GB/128GB snapdragon version (Xiaoxin Pad pro 2022) and it's much more performant and fluid than my Pinetab 2, also 8GB/128GB version.
If your kids software is available in Ubuntu maybe? At a glance I’d wonder how power efficient it would be (my $100 Walmart tablet lasts all week with light usage, I doubt this could compare), and would have to wonder as well on gpu performance. It’s likely not optimized yet so idk I’d trust 800 mhz as enough.
I think the article sums it up best:
RISC-V computing is a promising field but best ploughed by developers, early adopters, and tech enthusiasts at present. RISC-V chip performance is improving, but it’s not “there” for mainstream adoption — yet.
It’d be a ton of fun to tinker with and if you have the money to risk I’d say go for it! But I wouldn’t buy this for a kid unless I had the extra $150 to potentially get them a normal android tablet if this didn’t work as well as hoped.
my $100 Walmart tablet lasts all week with light usage, I doubt this could compare
probably not in a first release, but Android is convulted piece of shit compared to linux desktop environments. Not to mention Google's and/or OEMs built-in system apps running 24/7 guzzling all your data in the background.
In time, I guess it would beat out in performance and efficiency but lose in the availability of applications, same as desktop linux.
Almost certainly, and get security updates something I’d very much want if I let the tablet off the local network. I would love to see this thing get to that point to ditch android entirely.
This is really meant to serve as a development platform though, so the price and capabilities probably matter less, and the default settings and such are probably not as tuned as they could be to offer the best performance or battery life.
I don't even think power management tools in stock Linux take RISCV into account yet lol
Power management on "the most boring Intel chip imaginable" is still touch-and-go at times.
The problem for me is the shipping. It was more than 100$ for the dc roma laptop 2. maybe the tablet is less.
In any case, I‘m definitely going for risc-v as a hobby dev and admin.
I watched Explaining Computer's review of the DC-ROMA RISC-V Laptop II and I've decided to wait until the next gen RISC. It's too early even for me. When even overly-enthusiastic and much-too-forgiving Christopher Barnatt thinks it's not quite there yet, I pass.
The ram options available for this tablet are better than what the iPad had when it first came out, and are pretty on par with more modern versions. Source
The idea of using a tablet as a computer is not exactly a selling point for me. What id love to see is an app market space for tablets like this. Something that competes with Apple and Google; especially if it had a focus on home automation and security. Gaming would be a close second.
Sure, but I thought apt was just that. Anyone can make a repository or app store and give you access to apps thru apt-get install app. You could also run ducker to run virtual apps.
I would want to run gimp, krita, scribus inkscape, blender (maybe), Joplin, python/notebook, Spyder, libre office, etc. I think that would be a great list of apps that already one can easily install via app. I don't want a store like apple or google and for sure I don't want black box stuff that will run in the background consuming battery and stealing my data. I'll go check the review to see if the "it's not there yet" refers to functionality where these apps will keep crashing vs functionality meaning my mom can pick it up and use it like toddlers do. Big difference for me.
It is very low powered hardware that is old at this point. Don't buy it.
The hardware is not old but it is low powered. From the article: “The DC-ROMA RISC-V Pad II would struggle to outperform a cheap, second-hand ARM-based Android tablet from 5 years ago.”
The reason to buy it is not to have a tablet. It is to have an affordable RISC-V development and test machine.
Buy it if you want to help advance RISC-V.
I would just get a single board computer then. You could even get a desktop chip.
Good luck trying to run anything on risc-v (ik box64 and box86 exists)