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 a newer version of the same thing.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? >
