On 07/11/12 02:50, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote: > On Wed, 07 Nov 2012, Adrian Fita wrote: >> My CPU is an AMD Turion(tm)X2 Dual Core Mobile RM-76, cpu family: 17, so >> it doesn't need the amd64-microcode package which contains microcode >> updates only for cpu families: 10h - 14h & 15h. But the microcode kernel > > Family 17 (decimal) is family 11h (hexadecimal).
Oh, ok. >> module gets loaded regardless of the fact that my CPU doesn't need it. > > Linux loads drivers for the devices it supports. Your processor supports > microcode updates, and the kernel does know how to apply them, so the > microcode driver will load. > > Also, the modular microcode driver won't complain of missing firmware files > if amd64-microcode is properly installed and working (the firmware files > with the microcode will be there), so something is wrong. > > Are you using a custom kernel? was the initramfs for the running kernel > properly updated by "update-initramfs -u" ? Are you using systemd? I'm not using a custom kernel, just the stock Debian, linux-image-3.5-trunk-686-pae kernel. I was confused why I need to have the amd64-microcode package instaled because it doesn't seem to matter whether I have it installed or not. "dmesg | grep microcode:" gets me "microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x02000057" regardless if I have the microcode package installed or not; so am I to assume that my CPU gets its microcode update from the BIOS/EFI - if it even has one...? In that case it does seem that having the amd64-microcode package installed is superfluous, but if I uninstall it, I see the message "microcode: failed to load file amd-ucode/microcode_amd.bin" displayed at boot, so I'll keep it installed. >> So, shouldn't the microcode module be loaded only for the CPUs that need >> it? I know I can blacklist the module from loading, but I think this >> should be handled more elegantly - read automatically - by Debian so >> users wouldn't have to manually fiddle with blacklisting modules. I > > It is not a very good idea to overcomplicate stuff that will break the boot > process should it be buggy. Fair enough, but how about having the linux-image packages recommend the *microcode packages for installation so users won't get confused by the message caused by the module trying to load the file with the microcode update and not finding it? -- Adrian Fita -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/509a92e8.5000...@gmail.com