[Mageia-dev] free software purity question

[Steve Havelka]

There is at least one fully free-software computer:

http://www.lemote.com/en/products/Notebook/2010/0310/112.html


This is the kind of computer Richard Stallman uses, as mentioned on
http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/



On 07/18/2012 07:35 PM, blind Pete wrote:
> This is not supposed to be a troll, although I expect that some will 
> interpret it as such.  There are two parts; the first is how does this 
> work, followed by some philosophical stuff.  AFTER I get answers to the 
> first part I want to make up my mind about the second part.  Then you 
> can flame.  
>
> It appears that I don't know how things work.  
>
> I prefer open source for a few reasons, but when it comes to 
> motherboard BIOSes there is no real choice, so I just hope 
> that the manufacturers are competent and trustworthy.  What is 
> the story with CPUs and video cards?  
>
> My attitude to non-free firmware is in flux.  At the moment 
> I am annoyed by it, but accept it as a fact of life and just 
> install it.  
>
> In the olden days CPUs and graphics cards were hard wired.  If they 
> didn't work you had to throw them out, change the masks and 
> manufacture new ones.  Remember the Pentium division error?  
> Modern devices are far too complex for that to work.  They 
> have code that is variously known as; firmware, CPU microcode, 
> or a video BIOS.  
>
> Now the bits that I don't know about... 
>
> Does a modern CPU run *at all* without microcode?  I assume that 
> when you buy a CPU it has microcode in ROM on the chip.  
> Then at powerup it copies the code from ROM to working memory 
> where it is run until either powerdown or it is over written with 
> a newer version of the same thing.  Is that right?  
>
> As I understand it, microcode is usually used to emulate CISC 
> instructions on RISC hardware.  Can a consumer tell the difference?  
> Would the manufacturers tell us, even if we asked nicely?  
> If we do know which instructions are run on hardware and which 
> are run in microcode, does is change from one chip to the next?  
> Can gcc be configured to only produce the subset of instructions 
> that run on the hardware?  There are a couple of references in 
> man gcc, but they seem to refer to the PowerPC, not x86.  
>
> Same problem with video cards.  According to Wikipedia, since 
> EGA hit the market in 1984, all video cards have their own BIOS.  
>
> Is *possible* to run anything better than CGA without using 
> closed source code?  If you physically removed the chip 
> containing the video BIOS from a video card would you even be 
> able to look at the motherboard's BIOS?  
>
> Is there any practical, or moral, difference between; 
> downloading and installing the latest firmware on boot, 
> downloading and flashing the video BIOS, 
> flashing the video BIOS from a floppy that came with the video card, 
> waiting until cards with a good BIOS get distributed before buying.  
>
> Should a truly free distribution say; "detected a VGA video 
> card and/or a Pentium II, refusing to install"?  
>
> Is there any choice?  An open source BIOS an arm chip and a 
> text only display?  
>