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List:       gentoo-dev
Subject:    Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Announcing the Gentoo/LoongArch project
From:       WANG Xuerui <xen0n () gentoo ! org>
Date:       2022-04-23 16:30:35
Message-ID: 4cc24cf4-55e8-c15b-7925-33fbddeee72d () gentoo ! org
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On 4/23/22 21:58, Joonas Niilola wrote:

> On 18.4.2022 7.47, WANG Xuerui wrote:
>> Of course I forgot to mention the devbox situation... The single box I
>> currently use is placed in my company, so I probably wouldn't be able to
>> share it. I have ordered another board though, so I'll be able to
>> provision it as a devbox after receiving it, and reworking of my home
>> network to provide for enough isolation. I'd post another progress
>> update when that happens. :)
>>
> Out of curiosity, what's the price on these things? Will they ever find
> their way to hobbyists? TIA.

Actually the Loongson boards/machines are easier than ever to buy; most 
of the earlier models were never put on regular retail channels, like 
the popular Taobao/Tmall/JD.com sites, while nowadays Loongson 
themselves have opened stores on JD.com [1], and plan to significantly 
expand sales into open market before 2025 (IIRC). I can't even translate 
their roadmap without sounding too idealistic...

The current prices are not quite "competitive", but definitely 
"affordable", at least for programmers; the current pricing at [1] is 
down to like 1999 CNY for MATX boards (CPU is soldered on board). You 
can get much better performance with similarly priced x86 offerings, but 
it's not like you have to save for a few months to buy one.

Laptops are more expensive, around 7000 CNY, due to small production 
batches; I think very few actually buys them, but some enthusiastic fans 
actually do. Servers are around 20000~30000 CNY and I think it's 
somewhat reasonable, although I wouldn't want one in my small apartment.

There are also early access boards with engineering sample chips; these 
are very limited in supply and crazy expensive, of course. My current 
3A5000 board is one of the earliest publicly available (early June 
2021), I think there are only ~50 in total, and it cost me 5000 CNY. 
It's probably worthwhile though, as it gave me several months' head 
start on my Gentoo work -- otherwise I'd still be using qemu today!

[1]: https://mall.jd.com/index-1000395408.html (Chinese only)

>
> -- juippis

-- 
WANG Xuerui
xen0n@gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux developer
PGP: 7C52 19E3 26A0 7311 3EA3 8806 C01F 7214 BC93 1414


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