this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (7 children)

How does it know if the microcode is outdated?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (6 children)

@ryannathans @captainkangaroo I'm going to make the wild assumption that the kernel will have a table of the current microcode versions at the time of it's release, but I doubt that
will get updated except by kernel upgrades.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If that's the case, why wouldn't they put the microcode in the kernel?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

@ryannathans Why bloat the kernel with the microcode for every intel processor that might need it (and there is a similar thing for AMD) when you don't have that specific processor? It does make more sense for it to be a separate, especially on memory constrained systems. I mean if you've got 256GB of RAM probably not a big deal but if you've got 256MB a big deal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

The kernel compilation is already configurable between megabytes and gigabyte+

Distros pick their featureset

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