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Empowering RISC-V with open source innovation from Ubuntu

We are proud to join RISC-V at Embedded World again in 2023! Our team will demo Ubuntu on RISC-V boards as well as demonstrate the potentials of open source innovation with our partners. 

Linux Made Easy on RISC-V with Ubuntu

Open standards and collaboration are strategic to hardware and software across industries and geographies. Open source and standards have reshaped our world in the last decade. RISC-V is the most prolific and open Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) in history, which has led the hardware community to embrace open standards and collaboration at this level. This open ISA enables a new era of processor innovation through open-standard collaboration with rapid industry-wide adoption.

While RISC-V enables stable reference architectures and hardware, running stable software on new boards can still be challenging. The cornerstone of the necessary software is the underlying Operating System (OS), which provides reliability and stability. This demand makes development on Linux even more attractive since Linux is the most popular OS for developers and hobbyists across kernels, drivers, and distributions.

At Canonical, we believe that open source is the best way to accelerate innovation. It motivates us to enable a wide range of open source communities under the Ubuntu umbrella. However, open source software comes with its own set of challenges. Canonical aims to position Ubuntu as not just the reference OS for innovators and developers but also as the vehicle to enable them to take their products to market faster by letting them focus on their core application without worrying about the stability of the underlying frameworks. 

Canonical has worked with silicon partners in the RISC-V ecosystem to bring Ubuntu to multiple RISC-V development boards. With the collaboration, Ubuntu is available on a variety of RISC-V development boards, including SiFive’s Unmatched and Unleashed, Allwinner’s Nezha D1, StarFive’s VisionFive, Sipeed’s LicheeRV and Microchip PolarFire® SoC FPGA Icicle Kit.

Explore more with us at Embedded World

Canonical’s experts will bring two sessions at Embedded World 2023 to illustrate our scope at RISC-V.

 

Title: How to get RISC-V hardware fully “powered up” with excellent, secure and maintainable software

Speaker: Steve Barriault, Vice-President Field Engineering IoT

Session details: Wednesday, March 15, 11:30 – 11:45, RISC-V booth 1-550

Abstract: It is a truism in the market that the best hardware does not always win races. A solid library of code that can be trusted and maintained is decisive for RISC-V to fulfil its promises. In this talk, Steve will discuss Canonical’s current efforts and future plans to help the community deliver innovative and secure RISC-V -based solutions.

 

Title: Ubuntu on RISC-V

Speaker: Heinrich Schuchardt, RISC-V Lead Engineer

Session details: Tuesday, March 14, 11:00 – 11:15, RISC-V booth 1-550

Abstract: Delivering a Linux distribution for an architecture in plain development is an exciting journey. In this talk, Heinrich will describe the challenges and opportunities encountered while driving the RISC-V support in Ubuntu forward.