Intel Posts Updated Microcode Files For Linux

[paulpach]

Wait wait wait. Does this mean fixing Spectre is useless on Intel CPU's affected by Meltdown because you still can use Meltdown to read userland?

If they mitigate Spectre but don't mitigate Meltdown, then yes, it would be futile. The secret information you can get from Spectre is much easier to get using Meltdown.

In other words, in Intel, you must mitigate both bugs. KPTI is designed to mitigate Meltdown, and that has been widely deployed. Mitigating Spectre is a lot more difficult and it is still being worked on to this date.

[RealNC]

Well, like it or not and believe it or not - but these are not top priority... here is the responsibility and answer for you by CEO of Intel:

https://newsroom.intel.com/news-rele...-first-pledge/

Basically it is: they didn't yet fixed all supported products (and definition on what is supported you can see on a link a gave previously), but for older - please, ask in february or later

Well, there's still hope then, it seems.

[dungeon]

I'm not talking about obligation. I'm talking about decency and responsibility. Because the question is being side stepped. And again, I'll restate the question: What about the millions of systems out there that are using CPUs made in 2011-ish. This isn't about some retro Pentium II systems from 1997. This is about modern systems in wide use.

Well, like it or not and believe it or not - but these are not top priority... here is the responsibility and answer for you by CEO of Intel:
:

1. Customer-First Urgency: By Jan. 15, we will have issued updates for at least 90 percent of Intel CPUs introduced in the past five years, with updates for the remainder of these CPUs available by the end of January. We will then focus on issuing updates for older products as prioritized by our customers.

https://newsroom.intel.com/news-rele...-first-pledge/

Basically it is: they didn't yet fixed all supported products (and definition on what is supported you can see on a link a gave previously), but for older - please, ask in february or later

[madscientist159]

To put the question iterms a consummer might grasp better should Ford be responsible for all the model A's that might still be running?
I think the rational answer is yes there needs to be a legal cut off point.

Here's my litmus test. Did the manufacturer actively prevent third parties from fixing their product (e.g. with signing keys only the manufacturer controls, where lack of those keys prevents a fix from being created by anyone other than the manufacturer)? If so, the manufacturer should be held permanently liable for each and every system sold for as long as the owner would like to keep using it. Yes, even if it means decades. Of course, releasing said keys and source code so that those folks could fix their own product on their own time should allow the vendor to stop support.

Do the words "licensed, not sold" have any legal meaning for the vendor being required to keep the product fixed for as long as the consumer holds a valid license?

Am I missing something here?

[RealNC]

Sooo. You are NOT using the graphics drivers that I said Intel is no longer supporting, but instead using NVidia.

I specifically talked about OpenGL support for SandyBridge and IvyBridge in Windows 10, and you answers by talking about a using a completely different GPU and drivers, and you are then using random numbers from non-specific games that in all likelihood uses DirectX and not OpenGL. The one who has no idea what I am talking about is you.

I don't know what the F you're on about with OpenGL and whatnot.

We're talking CPUs here. Go home.

[RealNC]

He wants to say that product support EOL is the same per product. Is that just CPU you care about or iGPU or both that does not matter, EOL support is for all sort of... If something is not in this list it becames legacy where there is no anymore stright obligation to do something or on about anything, so no one really care too much if at all about it

I'm not talking about obligation. I'm talking about decency and responsibility. Because the question is being side stepped. And again, I'll restate the question: What about the millions of systems out there that are using CPUs made in 2011-ish. This isn't about some retro Pentium II systems from 1997. This is about modern systems in wide use.

[starshipeleven]

Intel is only updating CPUs up to 5 years old. What about the millions and millions of users running Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge? Intel is just going to leave them vulnerable?

I just got a new BIOS from Dell for my desktop, which is a Precision T1650 (technically I transplanted the motherboard into a nicer case, and mapped its power and front panel pinout so I could use non-proprietary connectors too, but that does not really matter).
Its processor support is only Sandy and Ivy bridge (also xeons and supports ECC ram). It seems it got a microcode update for Spectre (and Intel ME updates to fix other crap in ME) http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/...driverId=941TK
Fixes
- Update to the latest CPU microcode to address CVE-2017-5715.
- Updated Intel ME Firmware to address security advisories INTEL-SA-00086 (CVE-2017-5711 & CVE-2017-5712) & INTEL-SA-00101(CVE-2017-13077, CVE-2017-13078 & CVE-2017-13080).

So they seem to have microcode for Sandy/Ivybridge.

On ebay there seem to be a large amount of such workstations at cheap prices from German sellers atm.

EDIT: Hmmm, I'm not able to confirm that my processor is actually using a new microcode. Even after uninstalling the microcode package of my distro, and rebuilding the initramfs images (so they are now clean of microcode) I still see the same microcode version/revision (0x1c) which according to iucode_tool is a microcode from 2015

048/001: sig 0x000306a9, pf_mask 0x12, 2015-02-26, rev 0x001c, size 12288

EDIT: Hmmm again. The microcode tarball provided by Intel here https://downloadcenter.intel.com/dow...code-Data-File does include Ivy and Sandy bridge processors in the list, but my CPU (E3-1275 v2) is not, as also quite a few others.
Also checking with iucode_tool confirms that the pacakge does not contain a newer microcode for my processor.

So it seems the firmware release is either partial (maybe covers only processors actually under some support contract by their own businness customers, the OEMs) or for some reason the processors left out did not need any fix.

[carewolf]

I have a 2500K which runs at 4.2GHz alongside a 980 Ti. Games run extremely fast, and there's very little difference compared to latest gen CPUs. 100FPS, 150FPS, 200FPS... It's got it. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

Sooo. You are NOT using the graphics drivers that I said Intel is no longer supporting, but instead using NVidia.

I specifically talked about OpenGL support for SandyBridge and IvyBridge in Windows 10, and you answers by talking about a using a completely different GPU and drivers, and you are then using random numbers from non-specific games that in all likelihood uses DirectX and not OpenGL. The one who has no idea what I am talking about is you.

[dungeon]

I have a 2500K which runs at 4.2GHz alongside a 980 Ti. Games run extremely fast, and there's very little difference compared to latest gen CPUs. 100FPS, 150FPS, 200FPS... It's got it. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

He wants to say that product support EOL is the same per product. Is that just CPU you care about or iGPU or both that does not matter, EOL support is for all sort of... If something is not in this list it becames legacy where there is no anymore stright obligation to do something or on about anything, so no one really care too much if at all about it

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us...rocessors.html

[RealNC]

Intel doesnt support those chips anymore.Trying using any OpenGL application with those two CPUs in Windows 10... Not going to work because Intel has not updated their graphics drivers for windows 10 with those chips, so we are back to MS minimum which is OpenGL 1.1

I have a 2500K which runs at 4.2GHz alongside a 980 Ti. Games run extremely fast, and there's very little difference compared to latest gen CPUs. 100FPS, 150FPS, 200FPS... It's got it. So I have no idea what you're talking about.