Emulator licensing issues
From ParabolaWiki
To clarify the issue on emulators in Parabola and hopefully help maintainers of all free distributions come to a more concrete conclusion on the matter, this page includes a list of the emulators in Arch Linux under free licenses (e.g GPL) currently being blacklisted and a summary of how the various problems effect them.
Contents
1 The current decision
Parabola GNU/Linux is currently blacklisting many emulators provided by ArchLinux due to a decision made on the FSDG mailing list "Emulators" thread which concludes that most emulators do not belong in a "free as in freedom" operating system because their exclusive purpose is to run games like ROMs and images, which are assumed to not have a free license.
2 Problems with emulators
There are actually two potential problems with the fully free (libre) emulators in Arch Linux in that respect:
- ROMs: when only non-free ROMs appear to be available, meaning that the emulator could be used in a completely free manner if free ROMs did exist or were created.
- Images: when only non-free images games appear to be available, meaning that the emulator could be used in a completely free manner if free images did exist or were created, example: Playstation or Sega Saturn images or images burn from a CD o DVD to use on an emulator. For the images to be really free, they need to not have any nonfree dependencies. The best way to check that is to rebuild these on an FSDG compliant distribution or to audit the build instructions. We also need to make sure that no nonfree tools like image converter, IDEs etc are required to actually build the software.
- BIOS: when the emulator requires a non-free firmware file to run in the first place, meaning that unless a free firmware was created, free development or use of the emulator would not be possible.
- Compilation and binaries: If we have a binary like VLC for Windows, and that VLC is free software, the binary could contain nonfree software like bundled libraries. Or it could be cross compiled from GNU/Linux and produce a binary without any nonfree software. So to be sure it is easier to build the binary inside an FSDG compliant distribution and audit the build process along the way. Some software also might have hidden nonfree dependencies that would also be found when rebuilding it.
Note: In place of the word "firmware", "BIOS" is sometimes used, since BIOS is more descriptive, and people know what it means. However, it isn't really a BIOS, which is a specific architecture, but a BIOS-like system.
An emulator is considered non-free if it requires a non-free BIOS to use, and free if it does not. Use of a free emulator with non-free ROMs and images may still be considered non-free depending on whether or not ROMs and images are interpreted to be software.
3 Problems with real hardware
GNU/Linux has been ported to a wide variety of hardware, including game consoles. However the availability of GNU/Linux doesn't magically makes everything FSDG compliant. For instance installing GNU/Linux could require nonfree games. It could also work only in certain specific distributions and adding support for specific consoles in FSDG distributions could require more or less work depending on the status of the console. Source code could also have disappeared if people didn't upstream support for the console.
In some cases people also write free software games for consoles. These might be easier to build and audit in FSDG distributions.
4 Information on blacklisted emulators
Each emulator may be considered Non-Free, Free or Free + Free Use, where the latter means that it's both possible to run and use it freely. An emulator is non-free if either of the first two columns ("Free" and "Free Firmware") are no. It qualifies for free-use if the next two columns ("Free ROMs" and "Free Dev Tools") are both yes. A freely-licensed ROM and image without free dev tools is considered non-free for the same reason we consider FreeDOS to be non-free.
The "Free" column below does not account for firmware; it means the core executable.
N/A in "Free Firmware" means that the emulator does not have or require firmware to run.
To clarify it, if there's other text there than "yes" or "no", green means yes, red means no.
Note: In some cases text is put in yellow boxes. That is equivalent to "technically yes" or "there isn't enough information".
5 List of Native Emulators
| Name | Free | Emulates | Requires firmware | Free dev tools for firmware | Free firmware | Free dev tools for games/OS | Free games/OS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Uzebox Emulator (Uzem) | x86_64 and i686 | Uzebox (ATmega644) | No | N/A | N/A | avr-gcc + avr-libc, packaged in Parabola | Yes: The Parabola emulator package is currently broken, so the emulator and games were checked directly with their upstream source code: https://github.com/Uzebox/uzebox is GPLv3: all the C files I checked contain the GPLv3 headers, the website mention that the tools and the emulator and the Arkanoid example are under the GPLv3, and at the time of writing building from source works fine: $ git clone https://github.com/Uzebox/uzebox |
| 1964js/CEN64/Mupen64/Mupen64Plus/N64js | Yes | Nintendo 64 (N64) (NEC VR4300) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) | technically |
| Atari++/Atari800/kat5200 | Yes | Atari 400/800/400XL/600XL/800XL/130XE/5200 (MOS Technology 6502B and MOS Technology 6502C) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically |
| BlastEm/DGen (SDL)/higan (bsnes - Genesis/Mega Drive)/Mednafen (Genesis/Mega Drive) | Yes | Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (Motorola 68000 - MC68HC000) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils (m68k-unknown-elf) and WLA_DX | technically |
| Boycott Advance/iDeaS | No | Nintendo Game Boy Advance (GBA) (ARM7TDMI) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | Yes but unknown if nonfree dependencies |
| bsnes-plus/higan (bsnes - SNES/SFC)/Mednafen (SNES/SFC)/SNEeSe | Yes | Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES/SNES)/Super Family Computer (Super Famicom/SFC)/Super Comboy (65c816 Ricoh 5A22 - based WDC 65C816) | No | N/A | N/A | WLA_DX | technically |
| bsnes-plus/higan (bsnes - SGB/BS-X/Sufami) | Yes | Nintendo Super Game Boy, BS-X Satellaview and Sufami Turbo (65c816 Ricoh 5A22 - based WDC 65C816 and Sharp LR35902 - Custom Zilog Z80) | Yes | WLA_DX | technically | WLA_DX | technically |
| Citra/3dmoo | Yes | Nintendo 3DS/3DS XL/2DS (ARM11 MPCore and ARM9) | Yes? | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi and arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | A GNU/Linux distribution is available but nobody checked it for FSDG compliance. Support for the DS also doesn't seem to be present upstream Linux, and it might need some dedicated distribution or builds anyway as the DS doesn't have much RAM and probably lacks an MMU. |
| Decaf | Yes | Nintendo Wii U/Wii U Ware (IBM PowerPC "Espresso" PPC32) | Optional? | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (powerpc-unknown-elf) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (powerpc-unknown-elf and powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | Technically: Guix support cross compiling binaries for powerpc 32bit big endian, but a rootfs probably cannot be created. No other FSDG compliant distributions has support for that architecture. Some GNU/Linux distributions were also created for the Wii but they are not FSDG compliant. Free sotware homebrew applications also exist[1][2][3][4] but they were not checked for FSDG compliance |
| dasShiny/DeSmuME | Yes[5] | Nintendo DS/DSi/DSi XL (ARM946E-S and ARM7TDMI) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi and arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | A GNU/Linux distribution is available but nobody checked it for FSDG compliance. Support for the DS also doesn't seem to be present upstream Linux, and it might need some dedicated distribution or builds anyway as the DS doesn't have much RAM and probably lacks an MMU. |
| Dolphin (emulator - 64bit software support only) | Yes | Nintendo GameCube (NGC/GCN/GC)/Triforce (arcade) (IBM PowerPC "Gekko" PPC32) and Nintendo Wii/WiiWare (IBM PowerPC "Broadway" PPC32) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (powerpc-unknown-elf) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (powerpc-unknown-elf and powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | Technically: Guix support cross compiling binaries for powerpc 32bit big endian, but a rootfs probably cannot be created. No other FSDG compliant distributions has support for that architecture. Some GNU/Linux distributions were also created for the Wii but they are not FSDG compliant. Free sotware homebrew applications also exist[6][7][8][9] but they were not checked for FSDG compliance |
| ePSXe | No | Sony PlayStation (PS/PSX/PS1/PSone) (MIPS R3000A-family LSI LR333x0) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils ans Clang/LLVM/lld (mips-unknown-elf) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips-unknown-elf) | technically |
| FakeNES (NES/FC)/FakeNES GT (NES/FC)/FCE (NES/FC)/FCE Ultra (NES/FC)/FCEUX (NES/FC)/Fergulator/halfnes/higan (bsnes - NES/FC)/Mednafen (NES/FC)/Nestopia (NES/FC)/Nestopia UE (NES/FC)/puNES (NES/FC)/TuxNES | Yes | Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)/Family Computer (Famicom/FC)/Hyundai Comboy (Ricoh RP2A03 - NTSC/Ricoh RP2A07 - PAL/Ricoh RP2CO5/MOS Technology 6502) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | There is Thwaite but it needs to be checked for FSDG compliance. |
| FCE (FDS)/FCE Ultra (FDS)/FCEUX (FDS)/higan (bsnes - FDS)/Mednafen (FDS)/Nestopia (FDS)/Nestopia UE (FDS)/puNES (FDS) | Yes | Family Computer Disk System (Nintendo) (FDS/FCD) (Ricoh RP2A03 - NTSC/Ricoh RP2A07 - PAL/Ricoh RP2CO5/MOS Technology 6502) | Yes | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically |
| Gambatte/Gearboy/GNUboy (GB)/higan (bsnes - GB/GBC)/Mednafen (GB/GBC)/mGBA (GB/GBC)/VBA2 (GB/GBC)/VisualBoyAdvance-M (GB/GBC)/zBoy (GB) | Yes | Nintendo Game Boy/Game Boy Pocket/Game Boy Light/Game Boy Color (Sharp LR35902 - Custom Zilog Z80) | No | N/A | N/A | WLA_DX | technically |
| Gearsystem/SMS Plus | Yes | Sega Mark III/Master System (SMS)/Game Gear (Zilog Z80) | No | N/A | N/A | WLA_DX | technically |
| Gekko | Yes | Nintendo GameCube (NGC/GCN/GC) (IBM PowerPC "Gekko" PPC32) | Optional? | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (powerpc-unknown-elf) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (powerpc-unknown-elf and powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | Guix support cross compiling binaries for powerpc 32bit big endian, but a rootfs probably cannot be created. No other FSDG compliant distributions has support for that architecture. |
| Gens/"Gens/GS" (Genesis/Mega Drive - i686 software support only) | Yes | Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (Motorola 68000 - MC68HC000) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils (m68k-unknown-elf) and WLA_DX | technically |
| Gens/"Gens/GS" (Sega CD - i686 software support only) | Yes | Sega CD/Mega-CD (Motorola 68000 - MC68HC000) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils (m68k-unknown-elf) and WLA_DX | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils (m68k-unknown-elf) and WLA_DX | technically |
| Gens/"Gens/GS" (Sega 32X - i686 software support only) | Yes | Sega 32X (SH2) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | technically |
| Handy/Mednafen (Lynx) | Yes | Atari Lynx (MOS Technology 6502C) | Yes | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically |
| Hatari | Yes | Atari ST/STE/TT/Falcon (Motorola 68000 - MC68HC000) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils (m68k-unknown-elf and m68k-unknown-linux-gnu) and WLA_DX | Linux has some support for at least some of these computers in arch/m68k with the CONFIG_ATARI support for instance, but we don't have any FSDG compliant distributions that supports m68k yet. |
| higan (bsnes - GBA)/Mednafen (GBA)/mGBA (GBA)/VBA2 (GBA)/VisualBoyAdvance-M (GBA) | Yes | Nintendo Game Boy Advance (GBA) (ARM7TDMI) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | Yes but unknown if nonfree dependencies |
| higan (bsnes - SC1k/MS/GG)/Mednafen (SC1k/MS/GG) | Yes | SG-1000/SG-1000 II/SC-3000/SF-7000/Sega Mark III/Master System (SMS)/Game Gear (Zilog Z80) | No | N/A | N/A | WLA_DX | technically |
| higan (bsnes - WonderSwan)/Mednafen (WonderSwan) | Yes | Bandai WonderSwan/WonderSwan Color/SwanCrystal (NEC V30 - x86_16) | Yes | NASM | technically | NASM | technically |
| Hu-Go!/higan (bsnes - PC Engine/SuperGrafx)/Mednafen (PC Engine/SuperGrafx) | Yes | NEC TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem/SuperGrafx/TurboExpress/PC Engine (Hudson Soft HuC6280) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65 and WLA_DX | technically |
| iDeaS (NDS) | No | Nintendo DS/DSi/DSi XL (ARM946E-S and ARM7TDMI) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi and arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | A GNU/Linux distribution is available but nobody checked it for FSDG compliance. Support for the DS also doesn't seem to be present upstream Linux, and it might need some dedicated distribution or builds anyway as the DS doesn't have much RAM and probably lacks an MMU. |
| JAVATARI/Stella/z26 | Yes | Atari 2600 (MOS Technology 6507) | No | N/A | N/A | DASM | technically |
| JPCSP/Yaupspe | Yes | Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) (MIPS R4000) | Yes? | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) and devkitPro (devkitPSP) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf, mips64-unknown-linux-gnu and mips64-unknown-kfreebsd-gnu) and devkitPro (devkitPSP) |
ucLinux was ported to the PSP, but even if some support mips64 in some FSDG distributions, there are no FSDG distributions that support MMU-less targets, and support for the PSP is probably not in upstream Linux anyway. And people need to look if it's possible to boot that without shipping / downloading nonfree software anyway. |
| Kega Fusion (Sega Genesis - i686 software support only) | No | Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (Motorola 68000 - MC68HC000) + SVP chip | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils (m68k-unknown-elf) and WLA_DX | technically |
| Kega Fusion (Sega CD - i686 software support only) | No | Sega CD/Mega-CD (Motorola 68000 - MC68HC000) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils (m68k-unknown-elf) and WLA_DX | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils (m68k-unknown-elf) and WLA_DX | technically |
| Kega Fusion (Sega 32X - i686 software support only) | No | Sega 32X (SH2) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | technically |
| Lxdream/redream | Yes | Sega Dreamcast (DC) (SH4) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | Dreamshell[10] (deblobbing needed) or port of fully free KallistiOS-like[11] (or any) version as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf and sh-unknown-linux-gnu) | There is the dclinux project to port Linux on the dreamcast. But even if there is some support for the dreamcast in upstream linux (with CONFIG_SH_DREAMCAST for instance) there are no FSDG compliant distribution that support SH4. There might be other project as well like KallistiOS but they need to be checked for FSDG compliance. |
| MAME (and MESS merged) | Yes | Multiple hardware (arcades, game consoles and computer systems) | Most hardware do but uzebox doesn't. | I managed to build DrMario from Uzebox. It requires avr-gcc and avr-libc. Beside that there are also generic purpose compilers like gcc / llvm that could work for some computers. There are also special compilers like cc65, DASM, devkitPro and WLA_DX. | We have DrMario from uzebox that displays something on the screen. | avr-gcc and avr-libc can build DrMario. Some genral purpose compilers might work for some of the targets like GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (multiarch), and some have specific compilers: cc65, DASM, devkitPro and WLA_DX | MAME suports some MIPS computers and the r3000 CPU is already supported by Linux (with CONFIG_CPU_R3000). However the R3000 seems to lack MMU support and we have no FSDG compliant distributions that support MMU-less CPUs. For the emulation of x86 computers, running mame requires nonfree BIOSes: EXPECTED: CRC(8144b271) SHA1(d4bb13f54b756e2ba9e57075aae473b72397f48f) WARNING: the machine might not run correctly. |
| Mednafen (Neo Geo Pocket) | Yes | SNK Neo Geo Pocket/Neo Geo Pocket Color (Toshiba TLCS900H) | Yes | tlcs900archc | technically | tlcs900archc | technically |
| Mednafen (PC Engine CD) | Yes | NEC TurboGrafx-CD/TurboDuo/PC Engine CD (Hudson Soft HuC6280) | Yes | cc65 and WLA_DX | technically | cc65 and WLA_DX | technically |
| Mednafen (PC-FX) | Yes | NEC PC-FX (NEC V810) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils (v850-unknown-elf) or gccVB (GCC v2.95 + v810 patch) or VBDE (needs ported to free OS) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils (v850-unknown-elf) or gccVB (GCC v2.95 + v810 patch) or VBDE (needs ported to free OS) | technically |
| Mednafen (PlayStation) | Yes | Sony PlayStation (PS/PSX/PS1/PSone) (MIPS R3000A-family LSI LR333x0) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips-unknown-elf) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips-unknown-elf) | technically |
| Mednafen (Saturn - 64bit software support only) | Yes | Sega Saturn (SH2) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | technically |
| Mednafen (Virtual Boy) | Yes | Nintendo Virtual Boy (NEC V810) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils (v850-unknown-elf) or gccVB (GCC v2.95 + v810 patch) or VBDE (needs ported to free OS) | technically |
| MEKA | No contains License | SG-1000/SG-1000 II/SC-3000/SF-7000/Sega Mark III/Master System (SMS)/Game Gear/ColecoVision/Othello Multivision (Zilog Z80) | No | N/A | N/A | WLA_DX | technically |
| Nucleus/RPCS3 (PS3) | Yes | Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) (Cell Broadband Engine PPC64) | Yes? | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (ppc64-unknown-elf and spu-unknown-elf) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | Port of a fully free FreeBSD-like (or any) as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (ppc64-unknown-elf, ppc64-unknown-linux-gnu and spu-unknown-elf) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | Linux has support for the PS3 with CONFIG_PPC_PS3 for instance, but it requires a GNU/Linux distribution that works in big endian as CONFIG_PPC_PS3 has "depends on PPC64 && PPC_BOOK3S && CPU_BIG_ENDIAN". The list of distributions known to work doesn't have any FSDG compliant distribution in it. Guix has experimental support for powerpc 64bit little endian, so that won't work. 32bit big endian distributions may be able to work still, but Guix supports powerpc 32bit big endian only for cross compilation and building a bootable a rootfs will probably not work. |
| openMSX | Yes | MSX/MSX2/MSX2+/MSX TurboR (Zilog Z80) | Yes | WLA_DX | C-BIOS | WLA_DX | technically |
| PCSX/PCSX-df/PCSX-Reloaded | Yes | Sony PlayStation (PS/PSX/PS1/PSone) (MIPS R3000A-family LSI LR333x0) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips-unknown-elf) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips-unknown-elf) | technically |
| PCSX2 (i686 software support only) | Depends OpenGL 3.3 (Mesa 10.0 for i965{Intel video} and Mesa 10.1 for nouveau{nVidia video}), and needs a patch to remove zzogl and zerogs plugins that depends for nonfree nvidia-cg-toolkit support | Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) (Emotion Engine MIPS64) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf, mips64-unknown-linux-gnu and mips64-unknowm-kfreebsd-gnu) | According to Wikipedia, the playstation 2 has a 64bit little endian CPU and we don't have FSDG distributions supporting that anymore. Parabola has discontinued support for it and Guix only has cross compilation for it so making a rootfs will probably not work. I'm unsure if the support for the Playstation 2 has been upstreamed in Linux. Finally it'd also need a bootloader to boot and I've not checked the status or if the ones available are FSDG compliant. |
| Play! | Depends OpenGL 3.3 (Mesa 10.0 for i965{Intel video} and Mesa 10.1 for nouveau{nVidia video}) | Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) (Emotion Engine MIPS64) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf, mips64-unknown-linux-gnu and mips64-unknowm-kfreebsd-gnu) | According to Wikipedia, the playstation 2 has a 64bit little endian CPU and we don't have FSDG distributions supporting that anymore. Parabola has discontinued support for it and Guix only has cross compilation for it so making a rootfs will probably not work. I'm unsure if the support for the Playstation 2 has been upstreamed in Linux. Finally it'd also need a bootloader to boot and I've not checked the status or if the ones available are FSDG compliant. |
| PPSSPP | Yes[12][13][14] | Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) (MIPS R4000) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf, mips64-unknown-linux-gnu and mips64-unknown-kfreebsd-gnu) and devkitPro (devkitPSP) | ucLinux was ported to the PSP, but even if some support mips64 in some FSDG distributions, there are no FSDG distributions that support MMU-less targets, and support for the PSP is probably not in upstream Linux anyway. And people need to look if it's possible to boot that without shipping / downloading nonfree software anyway. |
| Raine | No | Multiple hardware (arcades) | Yes (most hardware) | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (multiarch), cc65, DASM, devkitPro and WLA_DX | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (multiarch), cc65, DASM, devkitPro and WLA_DX | technically |
| Reicast | Yes | Sega Dreamcast (DC)/ Sega NAOMI (SH4) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | built-in free ReiOS uses as default to run the emulator, Dreamshell[15] (deblobbing needed) or port of fully free KallistiOS-like[16] (or any) version as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf and sh-unknown-linux-gnu) | There is the dclinux project to port Linux on the dreamcast. But even if there is some support for the dreamcast in upstream linux (with CONFIG_SH_DREAMCAST for instance) there are no FSDG compliant distribution that support SH4. There might be other project as well like KallistiOS but they need to be checked for FSDG compliance. |
| Retroarch | Yes: packaged in FSDG distros (Guix, Parabola) | Emulates many consoles or games engines through various backends. According to retroarch website, "Some cores, like 2048, do not require any content in order to work.". | No | N/A | N/A | Yes According to retroarch website, "Some cores, like 2048, do not require any content in order to work." so that 2048 code is built inside FSDG distros. | Yes According to retroarch website, "Some cores, like 2048, do not require any content in order to work." so we have FSDG compliant games at least. |
| RPCS3 (PS Vita) | Yes | Sony PlayStation Vita (ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore) | Yes? | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | technically |
| Snes9x | Noncormercial Software | Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES/SNES)/Super Family Computer (Super Famicom/SFC)/Super Comboy (65c816 Ricoh 5A22 - based WDC 65C816) | No | N/A | N/A | WLA_DX | technically |
| Supermodel 3 | Yes | Sega Model 3 (arcarde) (IBM PowerPC 603e) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (powerpc-unknown-elf) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | technically |
| UAE | Yes | Commodore Amiga (MOS Technology 6502) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically |
| VisualBoyAdvance (GB/GBC) | Partially free (2xSaImmx.asm only allows for *non commercial* use). It could be free without it | Nintendo Game Boy/Game Boy Pocket/Game Boy Light/Game Boy Color (Sharp LR35902 - Custom Zilog Z80) | No | N/A | N/A | WLA_DX | technically |
| VisualBoyAdvance (GBA) | Partially free (2xSaImmx.asm only allows for *non commercial* use). It could be free without it | Nintendo Game Boy Advance (GBA) (ARM7TDMI) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (arm-unknown-eabi) and devkitPro (devkitARM) | Yes but unknown if nonfree dependencies |
| Virtual Jaguar | Yes | Atari Jaguar (Motorola 68000 - MC68HC000) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils (m68k-unknown-elf) and WLA_DX | technically |
| VICE | Yes | Commodore C64/C64DTV/C128/VIC20/PET/PLUS4/CBM-II (MOS Technology 6502) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically |
| XQEMU | Needs Nonfree MCPX binary blob | Microsoft Xbox (Intel Pentium III "Coppermine-based" - i686) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (i686-unknown-elf) | Port of fully free ReactOS-like (or any) version as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (i686-unknown-elf, i686-unknown-linux-gnu and i686-unknown-kfreebsd-gnu) | Some FSDG distributions still support i686. Since the xbox has 64M of RAM only, probably only LibreCMC will work, and since there are no i686 images, you will need to compile that yourself from the source code. Fortunately it is relaitvely easy to do. That said you will need a way to boot that distribution. There are various ways to install distributions on the Xbox. The Software Method depends on nonfree software. But you can use the The onboard TSOP method instead. It requires cromewell and raincoat and boot look like free software. Archive.org has some infos about cromewell source code and raincoat source code but someone needs to somehow get the source, build it and so on, and see if LibreCMC can somehow build Linux for the xbox or see if patches are needed because there is still some differences with regular PCs. |
| Yabause | Yes | Sega Saturn (SH2) | Optional | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | technically | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | technically |
| ZSNES (i686 software support only) | Yes | Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES/SNES)/Super Family Computer (Super Famicom/SFC)/Super Comboy (65c816 Ricoh 5A22 - based WDC 65C816) | No | N/A | N/A | WLA_DX | technically |
6 List of Emulators which run only on Wine
| Name | Free | Emulates | Requires firmware | Free dev tools for firmware | Free firmware | Free dev tools for games/OS | Free games/OS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1964 | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | Nintendo 64 (N64) (NEC VR4300) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) | technically |
| Altirra | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | Atari 400/800/400XL/600XL/800XL/130XE/5200 (MOS Technology 6502B and MOS Technology 6502C) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically |
| cxbx | Yes | Microsoft Xbox (Intel Pentium III "Coppermine-based" - i686) | Yes? | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (i686-unknown-elf) | Port of fully free ReactOS-like (or any) version as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (i686-unknown-elf, i686-unknown-linux-gnu and i686-unknown-kfreebsd-gnu) | Some FSDG distributions still support i686. Since the xbox has 64M of RAM only, probably only LibreCMC will work, and since there are no i686 images, you will need to compile that yourself from the source code. Fortunately it is relaitvely easy to do. That said you will need a way to boot that distribution. There are various ways to install distributions on the Xbox. The Software Method depends on nonfree software. But you can use the The onboard TSOP method instead. It requires cromewell and raincoat and boot look like free software. Archive.org has some infos about cromewell source code and raincoat source code but someone needs to somehow get the source, build it and so on, and see if LibreCMC can somehow build Linux for the xbox or see if patches are needed because there is still some differences with regular PCs. |
| DaedalusX64 | Yes | Nintendo 64 (N64) (NEC VR4300) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) | technically |
| Dxbx/Xenoborg | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | Microsoft Xbox (Intel Pentium III "Coppermine-based - i686) | Yes? | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (i686-unknown-elf) | Port of fully free ReactOS-like (or any) version as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (i686-unknown-elf, i686-unknown-linux-gnu and i686-unknown-kfreebsd-gnu) | Some FSDG distributions still support i686. Since the xbox has 64M of RAM only, probably only LibreCMC will work, and since there are no i686 images, you will need to compile that yourself from the source code. Fortunately it is relaitvely easy to do. That said you will need a way to boot that distribution. There are various ways to install distributions on the Xbox. The Software Method depends on nonfree software. But you can use the The onboard TSOP method instead. It requires cromewell and raincoat and boot look like free software. Archive.org has some infos about cromewell source code and raincoat source code but someone needs to somehow get the source, build it and so on, and see if LibreCMC can somehow build Linux for the xbox or see if patches are needed because there is still some differences with regular PCs. |
| EMU7800/ProSystem Emulator | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | Atari 7800 (MOS Technology 6502C) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically |
| Genesis Plus | Yes | Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (Motorola 68000 - MC68HC000) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils (m68k-unknown-elf) and WLA_DX | technically |
| MFZPSP/Sam PSP/Soywiz PSP Emu | Yes, Needs Digital Mars D(The backend is nonfree, use GDC or LDC instead) to compile Soywiz PSP Emu | Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) (MIPS R4000) | Yes? | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) | technically |
| Nester | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)/Family Computer (Famicom/FC)/Hyundai Comboy (Ricoh RP2A03 - NTSC/Ricoh RP2A07 - PAL/Ricoh RP2CO5/MOS Technology 6502) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | There is Thwaite but it needs to be checked for FSDG compliance. |
| NeutrinoSX2 | Yes | Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) (Emotion Engine MIPS64) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf, mips64-unknown-linux-gnu and mips64-unknown-kfreebsd-gnu) | According to Wikipedia, the playstation 2 has a 64bit little endian CPU and we don't have FSDG distributions supporting that anymore. Parabola has discontinued support for it and Guix only has cross compilation for it so making a rootfs will probably not work. I'm unsure if the support for the Playstation 2 has been upstreamed in Linux. Finally it'd also need a bootloader to boot and I've not checked the status or if the ones available are FSDG compliant. |
| Nintendulator | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)/Family Computer (Famicom/FC)/Hyundai Comboy (Ricoh RP2A03 - NTSC/Ricoh RP2A07 - PAL/Ricoh RP2CO5/MOS Technology 6502) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | There is Thwaite but it needs to be checked for FSDG compliance. |
| Nintendulator (FDS) | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | Family Computer Disk System (Nintendo) (FDS/FCD) (Ricoh RP2A03 - NTSC/Ricoh RP2A07 - PAL/Ricoh RP2CO5/MOS Technology 6502) | Yes | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | technically |
| nullDC | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | Sega Dreamcast (DC)/ Sega NAOMI (SH4) | Yes | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf) | Port of fully free Dreamshell[17]/KallistiOS-like[18] (or any) version as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils (sh-unknown-elf and sh-unknown-linux-gnu) | There is the dclinux project to port Linux on the dreamcast. But even if there is some support for the dreamcast in upstream linux (with CONFIG_SH_DREAMCAST for instance) there are no FSDG compliant distribution that support SH4. There might be other project as well like KallistiOS but they need to be checked for FSDG compliance. |
| Ootake | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | NEC TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem/SuperGrafx/TurboExpress/PC Engine (Hudson Soft HuC6280) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65 and WLA_DX | technically |
| Ootake (PC Engine CD) | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | NEC TurboGrafx-CD/TurboDuo/PC Engine CD (Hudson Soft HuC6280) | Yes | cc65 and WLA_DX | technically | cc65 and WLA_DX | technically |
| PC Atari Emulator (DOSBox and WINE) | Needs Borland to compile this Software | Atari 2600 (MOS Technology 6507) | No | N/A | N/A | DASM | technically |
| Potemkin/PSP Player | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) (MIPS R4000) | Yes? | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) and devkitPro (devkitPSP) | Port of a fully free OS as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf, mips64-unknown-linux-gnu and mips64-unknown-kfreebsd-gnu) and devkitPro (devkitPSP) | technically |
| Project64 | Noncormercial and/or Nonfree Software | Nintendo 64 (N64) (NEC VR4300) | No | N/A | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (mips64-unknown-elf) | technically |
| VirtuaNES | Needs Borland to compile this Software | Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)/Family Computer (Famicom/FC)/Hyundai Comboy (Ricoh RP2A03 - NTSC/Ricoh RP2A07 - PAL/Ricoh RP2CO5/MOS Technology 6502) | No | N/A | N/A | cc65, DASM and WLA_DX | There is Thwaite but it needs to be checked for FSDG compliance. |
| Xenia | Needs Visual Studio to compile this Software | Microsoft Xbox 360 (IBM PowerPC "Xenon" PPC64) | Yes? | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (powerpc64-unknown-elf and spu-unknown-elf) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | Port of fully free ReactOS-like (or any) version as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils, Clang/LLVM/lld (powerpc64-unknown-elf, powerpc64-unknown-linux-gnu and spu-unknown-elf) and devkitPro (devkitPPC) | Upstream Linux has no support for the for the Xbox 360, but the free60 project has information and git repositories that are needed to run GNU/Linux on the Xbox 360. The issue is also that the CPU seems to be big endian. Guix has experimental support for powerpc 64bit little endian, so that won't work. 32bit big endian distributions may be able to work still, but Guix supports powerpc 32bit big endian only for cross compilation and building a bootable a rootfs will probably not work. And we would probably need kernel patches or having someone to upstream support for the Xbox 360 and also check if the way to boot GNU/Linux doesn't require to distribute or download nonfree software. |
7 List of Hardware Without Emulator
| Name | Free | Emulates | Requires firmware | Free dev tools for firmware | Free firmware | Free dev tools for games/OS | Free games/OS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | Microsoft Xbox One (AMD APU x86_64) | N/A | It doesn't seem to be able to run GNU/Linux yet | It doesn't seem to be able to run GNU/Linux yet | It doesn't seem to be able to run GNU/Linux yet | It doesn't seem to be able to run GNU/Linux yet |
| N/A | N/A | Sega VMU (Sanyo LC86K87 - custom Sanyo LC8670 "Potato", similar to LC86104C/108C - 8bit) | N/A | N/A | N/A | No | No |
| N/A | N/A | Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4) (AMD APU x86_64) | N/A | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (x86_64-unknown-elf) | Port of a fully free FreeBSD-like (or any) as firmware | GCC/GNU Binutils and Clang/LLVM/lld (x86_64-unknown-freebsd, x86_64-unknown-elf, x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu and x86_64-unknown-kfreebsd-gnu) | There is some information about installing GNU/Linux distributions on the Playstation 4, but it seems to requires (1) a custom kernel and (2) some exploit. So we'd need to review the exploits and make sure they are free software and make linux-libre versions of these kernel or find information about the status of the PS4 in upstream Linux. |
| N/A | N/A | Nintendo switch | N/A | N/A | N/A | Yes | There is an u-boot fork and it also has linux fork. Here the amount of work to integrate it in an FSDG distro looks relatively small: one can upstream support for the switch in upstream u-boot and Linux and also package fuseegelee (the free software exploit) and tegra tools and have it supported. It will however require a computer to run the exploit through USB at every boot. |
8 List of Compatibility Layers
| Name | Free | Emulates/API | Free runtime | Free Dev Tools | Free programs | TODO (before inclusion in FSDG distributions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anbox | The host tools are probably free. | Android: Replicant 11 can be built and it can run the Replicant 11 applications. Depends on devices with nonfree bootloaders. | Requires an adapted Android distribution, and so far only a modified Android distribution (LineageOS? AOSP?) exist. Android distributions usually have nonfree software in Linux and at least in various repositories that are useless for Anbox. | Replicant 6.0 and 11 can be used to build some Android applications. Replicant also has an SDK for Android 4.2 and PureOS 10 can be used to build an Android hello world. All that is untested in Anbox. | Replicant 6.0 and 11 can be used to build some Android applications. Replicant also has an SDK for Android 4.2 and PureOS 10 can be used to build an Android hello world. All that is untested in Anbox. |
|
| Darling | Yes but it depends on nonfree Xcode. | There is some free software Darwin source code, but there is no more Darwin distribution (the Apple source code releases are probably incomplete). | Darling claims it's fully free, has about 130 repositories, probably fully free (no hardware related code, mainly common projects + apple code often under APSL 2.0) but it depends on nonfree Xcode | Some free toolchain exist: Clang/LLVM/lld and GCC/GNU Binutils (powerpc-unknown-darwin*, powerpc64-unknown-darwin*, i686-unknown-darwin*, x86_64-unknown-darwin*, armv7-unknown-darwin* and aarch64*-unknown-darwin*) but but they seem to require Xcode to cross build them somehow. Maybe some free binary toolchain could be bootstraped from xcode and the binaries could be published to be able to build free toolchains in darling at least. Many free toolchain also require to run on a nonfree target OS (mac OSX / iOS) to link to the host libraries. | Yes but they depend on nonfree Xcode to be built. |
|
| DOSBox | Yes[19] |
FreeDOS for x86_16 and x86_32 requires either a nonfree compilers or to use a patch to build with free compilers. Freedos is also probably not (yet) FSDG compliant (due to bundled in utilities). |
Yes | DOSBox has applications like COMMAND.COM. They are provided in Parabola's dosbox package. | The Parabola package has a COMMAND.COM application. So it needed to be built somehow with free tools. There may also be other standalone toolchains that weren't reviewed: GCC/GNU Binutils/DJGPP (i386-pc-msdos* and i586-pc-msdosdjgpp) and NASM | Already OK |
| DOSEMU | Yes |
FreeDOS for x86_16 and x86_32 requires either a nonfree compilers or to use a patch to build with free compilers. Freedos is also probably not (yet) FSDG compliant (due to bundled in utilities). |
needs FreeDOS (it can't be compiled with free software, needs a patch to build with free software compilation) |
NASM | Yes |
|
| libhybris | Yes | Android userspace drivers linked against Bionic (multiarch). Replicant 11 can build these drivers. Untested | Probably fully free software | Replicant, Android NDK / SDK as packaged in GNU/Linux distributions. Result untested with libhybris. |
Old versions of libsamsung-ril can be run with libhybris. Newer versions are not yet fully supported by Replicant 11 and running it though libhybris is untested with recent FSDG GNU/Linux distributions. |
|
| edk2-ovmf + qemu | Yes: Packaged in FSDG distributions(edk2-ovmf in Parabola) | Libreboot + Tianocore may be possible but no one tried | Yes: edk2-ovmf is the runtime | The Parabola grub package is also built for UEFI | Example: grub package in Parabola | Already OK |
| SeaBIOS + qemu | Yes: Packaged in FSDG distributions | Libreboot + SeaBIOS | Yes: SeaBIOS is the runtime | The Parabola grub package is also built for BIOS | Example: grub package in Parabola | Already OK |
|
Has GPLv2 copying, probably need clarification about the license in the README as well. |
Tianocore is probably fully free and already packaged by FSDG distros (in the edk2-armvirt, edk2-shell and edk2-ovmf package in Parabola x86_64) |
Probably fully free software. Will be 100% free software if the license gets clarified. |
It's possible to build UEFI applications with GCC: The Parabola edk2 source package (that comes from Arch Linux) does that. |
While free software UEFI applications exists, this is usually for running what were option roms for BIOSes. I'm not sure if we have free ones or not. Maybe ipxe can be bundled inside an UEFI? Several FSDG distros (Guix, Parabola) already have ipxe packages. |
| |
| Waydroid | The host tools are free but they downloads and update an Android image based on LineageOS that might have nonfree software inside its corresponding source code. | Android: Replicant 11 can be built and it can run the Replicant 11 applications. Depends on devices with nonfree bootloaders. | Requires an adapted Android distribution, and so far only a modified LineageOS exist. LineageOS has nonfree software in Linux and at least in various repositories that are useless for Waydroid. | Replicant 6.0 and 11 can be used to build some Android applications. Replicant also has an SDK for Android 4.2 and PureOS 10 can be used to build an Android hello world. All that is untested in Anbox. | Replicant 6.0 and 11 can be used to build some Android applications. Replicant also has an SDK for Android 4.2 and PureOS 10 can be used to build an Android hello world. All that is untested in Anbox. |
|
| Wine | Yes[20] | FreeDOS is fully free and supports x86_16 and x86_32. ReactOS exist for x86_32, x86_64 and armv7 but it's not FSDG compliant. | Provided by Wine | GCC/GNU Binutils/DJGPP/Mingw-w64 (i386-pc-msdos*, i586-pc-msdosdjgpp, i686-pc-mingw32, x86_64-pc-mingw64 and arm*-unknown-mingw32*) and NASM | FSDG compliant programs: hello, xz: "guix build -t x86_64-w64-mingw32 hello". They were tested with (Parabola) wine under Parabola x86_64. | Already OK |
