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Intel says the identified stability issues only affect Broadwell and Haswell while they also affect Skylake and IvyBridge. The microcode updates are also made

Intel says the identified stability issues only affect Broadwell and Haswell while they also affect Skylake and IvyBridge. The microcode updates are also made available to only very few channels and vendors. In turn, vendors are not making the updates available to customers. As an example, SuperMicro didn't release publically an updated BIOS. So, one month after the end of the embargo, Intel is working very hard to ensure people cannot get properly protected.

sgillen 9y ago
I mean to be fair they might be releasing to these vendors and having them make sure everything still works as expected, which I imagine would take awhile. I mean Intel is definitely not handling this well, just playing devils advocate here, they are not completely evil or insane actors.
- sverige 9y ago
  Sorry, but they are indeed evil. Although maybe Linus is right and they're simply insane.
  - frou_dh 9y ago
    Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by batshit?
cesarb 9y ago
For Linux, the microcode updates are also available at https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27337/Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-File https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27337/Linux-Proces... or similar (oddly, that's the 20171117 version, I recall seeing the 20180108 version there earlier, but can't find it now; in any case, that newer version is still available at https://pagure.io/microcode_ctl https://pagure.io/microcode_ctl). Distributions usually install that microcode update package so that it's activated early in the Linux kernel startup: if you see "microcode updated early to revision [...]" as the first line of your dmesg output, it's that mechanism doing its work.
- sverige 9y ago
  Apparently the 20180108 version is faulty, so they rolled it back to 20171117. I have Manjaro on one of my laptops where the auto update mechanism keeps failing to complete the rollback because the installed version is newer. Good thing the only thing I use that for is to watch videos.
  - cesarb 9y ago
    Luckly for you, the consensus from the kernel developers seems to be that these firmwares are only problematic if the new anti-Spectre features they expose to the kernel are actually used. The current upstream kernel doesn't use them, and the next upstream kernel will have a blacklist of the problematic firmware versions, so unless you distro patched the kernel to use these features without the blacklist, you should be safe.

sgillen 9y ago

I mean to be fair they might be releasing to these vendors and having them make sure everything still works as expected, which I imagine would take awhile. I mean Intel is definitely not handling this well, just playing devils advocate here, they are not completely evil or insane actors.

sverige 9y ago
Sorry, but they are indeed evil. Although maybe Linus is right and they're simply insane.
- frou_dh 9y ago
  Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by batshit?

cesarb 9y ago

For Linux, the microcode updates are also available at https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27337/Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-File https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27337/Linux-Proces... or similar (oddly, that's the 20171117 version, I recall seeing the 20180108 version there earlier, but can't find it now; in any case, that newer version is still available at https://pagure.io/microcode_ctl https://pagure.io/microcode_ctl). Distributions usually install that microcode update package so that it's activated early in the Linux kernel startup: if you see "microcode updated early to revision [...]" as the first line of your dmesg output, it's that mechanism doing its work.

sverige 9y ago
Apparently the 20180108 version is faulty, so they rolled it back to 20171117. I have Manjaro on one of my laptops where the auto update mechanism keeps failing to complete the rollback because the installed version is newer. Good thing the only thing I use that for is to watch videos.
- cesarb 9y ago
  Luckly for you, the consensus from the kernel developers seems to be that these firmwares are only problematic if the new anti-Spectre features they expose to the kernel are actually used. The current upstream kernel doesn't use them, and the next upstream kernel will have a blacklist of the problematic firmware versions, so unless you distro patched the kernel to use these features without the blacklist, you should be safe.