[Mageia-dev] free software purity question

Thu Jul 19 13:38:06 CEST 2012

Steve Havelka wrote:
+
+> There is at least one fully free-software computer:
+> 
+> http://www.lemote.com/en/products/Notebook/2010/0310/112.html
+
+I am surprised and pleased that such a thing exists, but it 
+does not look like a replacement for my desktop computer.  
+
+MIPS cpus still exist.  You learn something every day.  
+
+> This is the kind of computer Richard Stallman uses, as mentioned on
+> http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/
+
+If anyone was going have such a computer it would be RMS. 
+
+> 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 a newer version of the same thing.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?
+>>
+
+-- 
+blind Pete
+Sig goes here...  
+
+