Risc-V Support?

[noahnao]

Is there any support for Risc-V hardware, if there is no current support for Risc-V, are there any plans to add support in the future?

 

[danb35]

Is there any support for Risc-V hardware,

No. TrueNAS (CORE and SCALE) is x64-only.

are there any plans to add support in the future?

Since Debian doesn't support that architecture, I'd say it's highly unlikely, though "the future" is a very long time.

 

[HoneyBadger]

We don't have any precompiled RISC-V images - however, you could theoretically build SCALE from source:

GitHub - truenas/scale-build: TrueNAS SCALE Build System

TrueNAS SCALE Build System. Contribute to truenas/scale-build development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

If your actual RISC-V hardware is on the weaker end, running a Debian VM under QEMU might be the ticket.

Since Debian doesn't support that architecture

I hate to be the "well, akshually" guy again today, but it does:

RISC-V - Debian Wiki

wiki.debian.org

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

From experience, unless you're a masochist you want to stick to recommended hardware:

Hardware Recommendations Guide

This is the latest edition of the FreeNAS Community hardware recommendations guide. The current major version is R2, dated January 2021, with the last minor update on 2021-01-24. The format has moved away from the forum post form factor, to...

www.truenas.com

 

[danb35]

I hate to be the "well, akshually" guy again today, but it does:

I'll accept correction on this, but I understand there to be a distinction between Debian and a port of Debian. It also wasn't quite clear to me how functional that port was.

 

[HoneyBadger]

I'll accept correction on this, but I understand there to be a distinction between Debian and a port of Debian. It also wasn't quite clear to me how functional that port was.

That's certainly a fair point. Stacking unsupported-compile-on-unsupported-port one would definitely expect some "undefined behavior" in terms of day-to-day operation.

I can definitely see the appeal of running open source software on open source hardware though, and

"the future" is a very long time.

So while I can't speak for the Engineering team (or really, anyone other than myself on this specific subject) I wouldn't rule anything out as a possibility for "the future."

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

So while I can't speak for the Engineering team (or really, anyone other than myself on this specific subject) I wouldn't rule anything out as a possibility for "the future."

I want a Mr. Fusion.

 

[Etorix]

It also wasn't quite clear to me how functional that port was.

Since when is "functionality" a relevant criteria in the Linux world? Just bump that kernel number!

 

[Arwen]

In general, NASes, like TrueNAS SCALE, need reasonable amount storage interfaces to be useful. Even just 4 SATA can work, if on the low side. Many of the larger RISC-V single board computers have low amount of memory, few cores or limited expansion.

I think their was a single board release from HiFive, (spelling?), that had a PCIe slot which could be used for storage expansion. But, it had just the one slot and a M.2 PCIe slot.


While I like the concept of RISC-V, vendors are just not making CPUs & boards that are suitable for small / medium sized NASes. The boards out their could be used for lower end NASes. But, a cheap x64 server would likely run rings around such a RISC-V board.