[Mageia-dev] free software purity question

Thu Jul 19 05:11:04 CEST 2012

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 a newer version of the same thing.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?  
+>
+
+