x86 Straight Line Speculation CPU Mitigation Appears For Linux 5.17

[phoronix]

Phoronix: x86 Straight Line Speculation CPU Mitigation Appears For Linux 5.17

The Linux 5.17 kernel is introducing support for the x86 straight-line speculation "SLS" mitigation with it becoming increasingly clear modern x86_64 CPUs are susceptible to speculatively executing linearly in memory past an unconditional change in control flow...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=x86-SLS-Mitigation-5.17

[Developer12]

Awful lot of work for something they're leaving waiting in the wings.

[kylew77]

Awful lot of work for something they're leaving waiting in the wings.

I agree, Intel devs know more than they are letting on, I bet a large subset of their processors are vulnerable to this and they are just trying to keep the lid on it for now until mitigations get in place.

[Developer12]

I agree, Intel devs know more than they are letting on, I bet a large subset of their processors are vulnerable to this and they are just trying to keep the lid on it for now until mitigations get in place.

I think they just want to delay flipping it on as long as possible. It's an admission of defeat.

[Alex/AT]

Yeah, more slowdowns needed. People just have to buy new CPUs.