Warm Greetings To GTALUG
Members,
Just as year 2018 arrived and I prepared to push
the Order button, on the various parts for building a new desktop PC to run
debian LInux, replacing an ancient Dell Windows XP PC, along comes revelation of
the Intel Meltdown CPU bug, to muddy the picture.
My present new desktop PC build spec (much modified
according to some excellent earlier advice from GTALUG members) has an Intel Z97
LGA 1150 Intel 4-Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Haswell Processor. (I know, I know, the Intel Haswell CPU series is obsolete, but let's
just ignore this fact for the present discussion.)
I attach a copy of the present build
spec:
- <ca.pcpartpicker.com --
deb8_PC_business_24_7_duty_bare_v1 - summary - Steve_Petrie -
20170722.odt.pdf>;
- <ca.pcpartpicker.com --
deb8_PC_business_24_7_duty_bare_v1 - accessories - Steve_Petrie -
20170722.odt.pdf>;
* * *
* * *
It seems to me that, with regard to the Intel
Meltdown bug, I have two basic options:
- 1. Just accept the Meltdown bug
situation, proceed with the PC build using the Intel CPU, and live
with the perforrmance hit that comes with the fix in the Linux kernel for
the Meltdown bug.
- 2. Invest a week or two to
investigate AMD CPU options that will avoid altogether the Intel Meltdown bug.
This strategy could lead to a lengthy necessary respecification of other
components in the PC build spec, depending on how an AMD architecture fits
with peripherals.
An ARM CPU is not an option, as one of the other
operating system I plan to run on the new PC is DragonFlyBSD, which only
runs on Intel and AMD processors (not ARM).
* * *
* * *
*** LATE BREAKING NEWS ***
Speaking of DragonFlyBSD, here is an interesting
snippet just in from the dfly <users@dragonflybsd.org> email
discussion forum:
Subject: Re: Meltdown and Spectre information update
Matthew Dillon wrote:
> (2) Intel is supplying a Microcode patch for
newer CPUs, but it's hard
> to say how many BIOS makers will ever adopt
it.
I wouldn't count on it very much, especially nowadays when hardware
is
very usable far longer than vendors are even willing to support
it.
But that's the reason why Linux kernel provides a way to update
a
microcode early during boot or even in runtime. Maybe it's a good
idea
to implement it for DragonFly as well.
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/x86/microcode.txtCould be a promising fix for Meltdown, using the Linux
microcode update facility to install the Intel microcode patch for the Meltdown
bug. I may need to switch to a newer Intel CPU (than Haswell), if no Meltdown
microcode fix is forthcoming from Intel for Haswell.* * *
* * *
Do GTALUG members have any opinions on the relative
merits of the strategies I suggest above ??
Any comments / advice from GTALUG members,
regarding the above strategies (or any other strategy that comes to mind)
would be gratefully received.
And then there is the Spectre bug also lurking
...
Thanks in advance,
Steve