Canonical announced the development of a customized version of Ubuntu 24.04, designed to run on the Milk-V Mars board. This board features a 4-core 64-bit processor based on the RISC-V architecture and is the first of its kind to be comparable in size to a credit card, measuring 85 x 56 mm. The board is available for purchase for $39, or 8500 rubles when ordered through AliExpress.
The Milk-V Mars board comes in configurations with varying RAM sizes (1, 2, 4, or 8 GB) and includes slots for EMMC and micro SD cards, multiple USB ports, HDMI support for 4K resolution, Ethernet connectivity, GPIO pins, and hardware acceleration for video decoding and encoding.
There are two options available for loading the board with Ubuntu Server 24.04, each corresponding to a different storage medium. Some limitations include lack of support for the built-in GPU, incomplete PCIE support, and limitations on USB port compatibility.
Under a strategic cooperation agreement between MILK-V and Canonical, Ubuntu will be tailored to run on all future MILK-V devices, with a focus on optimizing support for computing and AI acceleration. The Ubuntu platform will be the primary operating system for all MILK-V boards