I've been using Raspberry Pi devices and similar single-board computers for years. They all have in common their ARM processors, just like most desktop computers are x86-64 processors, but I'm getting an SBC with a RISC-V chip.
In case you aren't in the know, RISC-V is an Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) that's relatively new to the scene. Created in 2010, it's an open source alternative to closed ISAs like x86-64 and ARM. In fact, you can review the RISC-V ISA manual on GitHub yourself. Processors with RISC-V architectures don't require licensing agreements to build, and they're far more energy efficient than the x86 processors dominating the PC market.
It's open source, the way forward
Open source software and hardware I believe offer a vision of a technological future that's better than the world we have now. Closed source development and proprietary licenses hold back innovation while open projects invite everyone to participate in and build on technology.
Thanks to RISC-V's open nature, more scrappy board developers can produce their own chips without signing legal agreements or paying royalties to a design company. RISC-V is free (as in freedom), so the barrier to entry is lower—at least in terms of manufacturing. Admittedly, support for actual software is its own challenge, as I'll explore.
My favorite Linux distros are adding support
Over the past few years, more and more Linux distributions have been getting on the RISC-V bandwagon. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, not to mention their Unix-like kin FreeBSD and OpenBSD, all offer images for computers with RISC-V architectures (at least the 64-bit version). One of my favorite distributions I tried in 2025 , DietPi, also has a dedicated RISC-V port.
Seeing all of these announcements about added support made me want to investigate the hype. A new type of hardware getting waves of attention from major Linux distributions is hard to ignore.
Interestingly, Google bragged in 2023 that it was bringing Android to RISC-V. Since then, the plan has been dropped ostensibly due to how difficult maintaining support is. I can't help but wonder if the consumer tech industry-wide push for AI-in-everything was what made maintenance too hard to focus on for Google.
I had to be careful about which board I picked
You should know though that just because a Linux or Unix-like distribution has support for RISC-V doesn't mean it will run on any RISC-V board. Hardware support is a bit fragmentary, so if you're thinking of buying a board, you should confirm the one you're choosing will run the operating system you want to install.
I ordered the VisionFive V2 development board , which isn't the latest and greatest, but I figured was a good starting point considering DietPi has a dedicated image for it already.
If I were going to get something newer and more powerful, I'd look to the HiFive
Premier P550 . It comes with Ubuntu LTS preinstalled, and based on reviews I've seen, it blows previous boards out the water, especially as a graphical desktop. It's more expensive than most of the other options, but it's what I'd get if I wanted to push RISC-V to its limits.
New ports and emulators are enabling software support
Of course, an operating system running on a computer is one thing; actual applications you can use to get stuff done is another thing entirely. Most software developers aren't programming with RISC-V in mind, resulting in the same cycle that Windows on ARM has faced : a lack of software support means a lack of hardware adoption, which means a lack of developers creating software support.
However, that doesn't mean nothing will run on RISC-V. Debian Linux has manually ported around 98 percent of its package base to RISC-V. That means, so long as you can find it in Debian's repositories, you'll likely be able to run what applications you want to run on RISC-V.
What's more, emulators are opening up more avenues for accomplishing tasks on RISC-V. The felix86 project is bringing x86 games to RISC-V , meaning even if developers aren't themselves porting their software to RISC-V, you can still potentially run it with an emulator.
Emulation is not ideal, of course, because it almost always introduces extra resource consumption. Still, the ability to run software at all is what breaks cycles like the one I mentioned earlier. Just consider how Valve's Proton compatibility layer has made people take Linux gaming seriously .
While I can't know for sure what will come of RISC-V, it's exciting to be a part of what looks like the beginning of a new kind of processor's arrival in the mainstream. I'm looking forward to putting together projects with my VisionFive V2 board as hopefully more software becomes available for it.
As a Meshtastic user , I'll also be keeping track of what's coming out in the ESP32 world. We're seeing the arrival of chips with RISC-V cores left and right, and I love that I'm already getting hands-on experience with the platform.
