The ClockworkPi Devterm R-01
============================
It has finally arrived! Two days ago a FedEx courier
dumped the devterm into the shed behind our house
and my first steps into the world of Risc-V could
begin.
The Devterm comes in kit form, so there is a bit
assembly involved, a process that i highly enjoyed.
The part quality is really nice, the construction is
quiet thought out and the instructions are clear.
If you have ever assembled a Revell plastic model
kit you should have absolutely no problems with this.
After about an hour of carefully assembling the
system the "moment of truth" came: I powered it on
and everything worked out of the box. The R-01
comes with a modified version of Ubuntu preinstalled
and boots after autologin straight into TWM.
Over the last couple of weeks i had gathered every
information i could get about the R-01 and its
"specialities" so i had already assembled a todo list.
First i changed the package channel from devel to
jammy:
%<-----------------------------
sed -i 's/devel/jammy/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
%<-----------------------------
Then i got rid of the update notifier daemon:
%<-----------------------------
apt purge update-notifier-daemon
%<-----------------------------
It was discussed in some places that an update could
break u-boot, so, to circumvent this for the moment
i made the appropiate entry in /etc/default/u-boot:
%<-----------------------------
U_BOOT_UPDATE=false
%<-----------------------------
Now was the time for an apt update and apt upgrade.
A (successfull) reboot later it was time to weed out
the tons of unneeded software ClockworkPi has put
on to the SD Card and install the things i want to
run on it.
The preinstalled TWM is quiet nice, but the installed
trackball of the Devterm is a crime against humanity,
so i opted for a lightweight and keyboard driven option.
I got the sources for dwm, dmenu and st from the
suckless homepage, made some adjustments in the config
of st to set the fonts right for the Devterm display
and compiled everything. St was compiled within a
couple of seconds, dwm in well under a minute.
As for the software: I mostly use console based tools
for my daily life, so performance is not really an issue,
the question regarding a webbrowser on the other hand
is a bit more tricky: As modern webbrowsers have grown
to monstrous proportions (which i did not expect the
Devterm to handle well) i needed more lightweight
options. While lynx is still the best (regarding speed)
option i also installed Netsurf, which allows me to
visit more graphic oriented pages without stressing the
Devterm too much.
I am still in the process of finding out what works best,
but for the moment i have reached the conclusion that the
system is well worth the money. On a finishing note: The
keyboard of the Devterm is quiet good for its size! Its
no model-m, but i had touched WAY worse keyboards in WAY
more expensive laptops.
