How To: Early-loading of Intel Microcode
 

After slogging thru Linux forums and Wiki-pages, and Intel's website, I pieced together a process for obtaining and installing (for early-loading) appropriate Intel microcode for the processor on my Slackare Linux box.

So I do not have to worry about forgetting the process I "wrote" it down. The process - which can be mostly-completed by copying-n-pasting example shell commands in the document - is available at:

https://www.bernieland.com/share/how...y_loading.html

Thank you BernieK. I hadn't updated in a long time and the reminder was appreciated. I never use initrd so I had to dig a bit deeper to first recall lilo.conf entry (for older installs) and then adapt to rEFInd (for newer). This was just to confirm it loaded the newest but apparently once the /boot/intel-ucode.cpio directory and the /lib/firmware/ has an entry, it apparently just loads, maybe not as early as other methods, but sufficient for my requirements.

Howdy, that's great. I was actually doing something similar (but without initrd).. And I was documenting the process. I have't yet gotten around to do the initrd version, hah.

Ehm.. Is there any chance you could add the information to docs.slackware?

I made this article there:
https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:se...rocode_loading

And there is still a rather empty initrd section. I didn't yet get around to it, but at some point I will for sure. Or perhaps you could help me get it done?

Any Slackware Documentation project contributor is welcome to include on the project's pages the microcode-loading document I wrote - in whole or in part, or by reference (as you kindly did).


Thank you for writing the microcode-loading page for the Slackware Documentation Project at docs.slackware.com

Good news regarding the reference on that page to manually creating the /lib/firmware/amd-ucode/ directory; As of Slackware 15.0 that directory is created and populated during Slackware installation and subsequent kernel-firmware package updates.

Thank you. I'll include it as soon as I can and credit you for it. Meanwhile I will leave the reference there :)

hmm. you sure?

I added that section because I didn't have those folders in the standard Slackware 15 installation :scratch:

Thank you for double-checking.
I am sure with respect to the full Slackware 15.0 installations on one each of my AMD and Intel boxes. The kernel.org GIT repository suggests so as well since it includes a populated amd-ucode directory (but no intel-ucode directory):

I cannot say when the amd-ucode directory was added to the source tree, but it is present on my Slackware 14.2 box (also a full installation).

All --

Just to add a me too ... there is an amd-ucode/ directory in the official Slackware64 15.0 a/kernel-firmware-20220124_eb8ea1b-noarch-1.txz Package ...

HTH

-- kjh

There is another method, mentioned in a previous thread (I haven't searched for it, but I made notes at the time):
Install iucode_tool & intel-microcode from SBo.
Then (as root,of course) check your present microcode:
Then run:
To see if it's been updated.
Then (this is assuming you already have a /boot/initrd.gz):
Then:
Run lilo (or whatever), reboot and check dmesg again.
Thanks to whoever I got this information from. :hattip:

Iucode tool is not available in Slackware by default. But ok, interesting enough.

https://slackbuilds.org/repository/1...m/iucode_tool/

https://slackbuilds.org/repository/1...tel-microcode/

That's fine as a side note. But best practices when recommending someone do something, is to get things done with the default tools in Slackware, if possible. If not, then..

TIMTOWTDI as somebody said.

KISS :hattip:

For those using alternative bootloaders or just too lazy to muck about with initrds, there isn't much to do. You can load intel microcode "late":

echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/microcode/reload

as described in section 22.2 here:

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/late...microcode.html

Of course intel-microcode from slackbuilds has to be installed. Why isn't intel microcode included in the binary blob monster package called kernel-firmware? It's got blobs for 20-year-old USB tv tuners in there but not Intel's latest CPU updates?!

Edit: Sorry, I didn't see that it said "Early" in the subject line. Maybe my head needs a micorcode update.

It is certainly possible, but it doesn't always/often "help" mitigate anything. From my reading, this method is mostly useful for servers that want to test the load without rebooting. But I could be wrong, it could also not just load, but also mitigate issues in some setups/situations.