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The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

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Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#131

Post by dfox »

raverbashing wrote: post #115
ndiddy wrote: post #5

I’m guessing they’re doing this because modern x86 processors can’t boot into BIOS mode anymore (edit: untrue, see reply by dmitrygr). This makes me wonder why they’re even offering FreeDOS as an option when they offer Linux for customers who don’t wish to purchase a Windows license. Maybe they have some sort of contractual obligation with a large customer?

And I guess FreeDOS doesn't support booting by UEFI as well (I mean, can it even?)

It would involve essentially reinventing UEFI CSM as part of this hypotetical UEFI FreeDOS.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#132

Post by necovek »

prmoustache wrote: post #113
bryanlarsen wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free to you, but HP is likely paying Ubuntu. They wouldn't be paying much, but they're probably paying something. The Ubuntu license says that if they make any modification whatsoever, no matter how trivial, they can no longer call it Ubuntu. Just adding a driver is enough to trigger the clause, AFAICT.

I doubt that. Most likely it is an agreement that is seen as a win on both party. HP has no incentive to pay ubuntu for anything, and ubuntu can't get any new market if it starts asking companies to pay for it. And they could use whatever distro they want that do not have those clauses instead of ubuntu.

As far as I heard from Canonical employees, Canonical was getting more per sold XPS13 (original Developer Edition) with Ubuntu than Microsoft did for every Windows being sold on the same laptop: when it was introduced, at the very least.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#133

Post by bayindirh »

gambiting wrote: post #119
walrus01 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some batteries have an entire stm32 series microcontroller in them, I've seen battery controllers that are actually the same "CPU" as on a discrete single motor quadcopter ESC.

MicroSD cards have a fully functional 32-bit microcontroller in them, it manages the write leveling and bad sector mitigation, but it's a fully fledged CPU otherwise.

And, there's a couple of great write-ups about them [0][1].

[0]: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554

[1]: https://i.blackhat.com/us-18/Wed-August-8/us-18-Valadon-Reve...

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#134

Post by cestith »

detaro wrote: post #111
dotancohen wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many industrial users are not price sensitive. Having the keyboard, monitor, and computer in a single housing with a built-in UPS all in a compact device with a single power cord is a big selling point.

But if you use DOS still for industrial stuff you usually do it because you need some old-fashioned interface (i.e. real serial or parallel ports are the usual example). Which is going to work great from inside a VM, not.

If you need real, physical RS-232, rs-422, rs-485, CANbus, 2wire, or parallel ports you're not buying a mass market modern laptop either.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#135

Post by TMM2K »

mcculley wrote: post #7
ndiddy wrote: post #5

I’m guessing they’re doing this because modern x86 processors can’t boot into BIOS mode anymore (edit: untrue, see reply by dmitrygr). This makes me wonder why they’re even offering FreeDOS as an option when they offer Linux for customers who don’t wish to purchase a Windows license. Maybe they have some sort of contractual obligation with a large customer?

Maybe it is for customers running weird old legacy hardware (e.g., lab devices, manufacturing, that only runs on DOS).

I'm the author of the article; It's not actually usable for that. The way the Qemu VM is setup there is no way to interface with the outside world at all. The only way to get any data in or out of that VM is through the keyboard and screen.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#136

Post by TMM2K »

throwaway742 wrote: post #93
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #33

What gets me is... what's the point ? If you don't want to fight MS about selling PCs with no OS, ship some Linux distro. DOS was a nice option when you needed to support bare-metal stuff like flashing the BIOS without a modern OS getting in the way, but I would be shocked if that worked here - basically, I can see reasons to ship DOS, but they're all mutually incompatible with a virtual machine. And if you're going…

It seems pretty obvious to me. There were issues getting the old FreeDOS image to run on some of the new hardware. Someone was tasked by their manager with fixing it. They said fuck it and just did this because it was easier/faster than trying to troubleshoot DOS on modern hardware. They showed it to their manager and their manager saw FreeDOS boot and was happy. Until now no one ever noticed because FreeDOS is just…

I'm the author of the article and that is my conclusion also.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#137

Post by TMM2K »

userbinator wrote: post #6

That was far more amusing and interesting than I thought it would be... I wonder if it can actually boot DOS on the physical hardware, and if it can't ( DOS itself is very minimal in what it requires of the hardware), is it really PC-compatible anymore?

I'm glad you were amused! I had fun dissecting these images and figuring out what lurked inside :)

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#138

Post by deusum »

walrus01 wrote: post #98
rsync wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SIM card in your mobile telephone is doing that right now. You are correct - it is basically used as a back door.

And the radio baseband firmware, what the hell is going on in there is likely known only to Qualcomm and the nsa.

Even when sending encrypted texts with Signal, I can't help but wonder if the keyboard software is sending everything to a government entity. Or, if a piece of hardware can silently grab screenshots.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#139

Post by kodah »

rwmj wrote: post #103
_ktx2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually when I hear people talk about backdooring it's usually on the network stack. On a phone that would be a modem. Most devices, even in your computer (eg: laptop battery) run an OS. There's a good talk somewhere on how we've lost our way with OS design and now need to write an OS that looks at a single machine as a distributed system.

Is it this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36myc8wQhLo USENIX ATC '21/OSDI '21 Joint Keynote Address-It's Time for Operating Systems to Rediscover Hardware Edit or this one (not a talk but a paper)? https://www.usenix.org/system/files/osdi18-shan.pdf LegoOS: A Disseminated, Distributed OS for Hardware Resource Disaggregation ... We propose a new OS model called the splitkernel to manage disaggregated systems. Sp…

Similar enough! The one that I'm thinking of was the only actual non Linux talk (and really, OS development talk) at a OS Dev conference.

Re: The weird Hewlett Packard FreeDOS option

#140

Post by aidenn0 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #73
aidenn0 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I last ordered from HP, many laptops did not have Linux as an option (mine did not, so I bought the FreeDOS version)

Well that's also weird! Why are both options available on some computers, while others only have FreeDOS, even when they can't actually run FreeDOS.

It ran FreeDOS just fine (and indeed runs Linux just fine for me), presumably they didn't want to QA that model with Linux.
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