Michael wrote: > On Tuesday, 1 April 2025 11:12:44 British Summer Time Dale wrote: >> Peter Humphrey wrote: >>> On Tuesday, 1 April 2025 01:44:18 British Summer Time Dale wrote: >>>> ... I have /usr on the same partition as / this time around. >>>> Do I need a init thingy still or can I ditch that thing? I do have /var >>>> on a separate partition, if that matters. >>> I have /var on a separate partition on some machines, and I only need an >>> initrd for microcode loading. I suppose I could include that in the >>> kernel, >>> but I haven't tried that. >> I thought about the fact I have a merged /usr now which means everything >> is in /usr. I hadn't thought of microcode being needed tho. How do I >> find out if there is any microcode being loaded on my system? I do have >> the package installed, read somewhere that it only loads something if it >> is needed so no real harm in having it installed even if nothing is >> being used today. It could prove helpful if something is being used >> later on tho. >> >> Is there somewhere I can look or some command I can run to see if I load >> any microcode that it needs to access while booting but before /var is >> mounted? Why isn't the microcode put in /usr or something anyway? >> >> Dale >> >> :-) :-) > The microcode blobs are not in /usr, but in /lib/firmware; e.g.: > > $ ls /lib/firmware/amd-ucode/ > microcode_amd.bin microcode_amd_fam16h.bin microcode_amd_fam19h.bin > microcode_amd_fam15h.bin microcode_amd_fam17h.bin README > > You either include the microcode required by your CPU in an initrd, or build > it in your kernel by specifying it - along with any firmware needed by your > graphics, etc. - in your kernel (CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE).
I have these. root@Gentoo-1 / # ls /lib/firmware/amd-ucode/ total 184 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 16 12:28 . drwxr-xr-x 104 root root 20480 Mar 22 07:36 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12684 Mar 22 04:52 microcode_amd.bin -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7876 Mar 22 04:52 microcode_amd_fam15h.bin -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3510 Mar 22 04:52 microcode_amd_fam16h.bin -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22596 Mar 22 04:52 microcode_amd_fam17h.bin -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 100684 Mar 22 04:52 microcode_amd_fam19h.bin -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4662 Mar 22 04:52 README root@Gentoo-1 / # I'm family 25 so not sure if those apply. Either way, I do have the amd-uc.img thing in /boot. I think the firmware package puts it there. Anyway, it finds it when I update grub config so I need a init thingy. I was kinda hoping I could ditch it but I guess it is the best way to load the microcode thing. I've read it is best to load the microcode pretty early. It was a thought. By the way, I copied some large files over to a m.2 external stick and the copy was kinda slow. I'm not sure what the cause of that is. I've never had much luck with speed over USB tho. May be a missing kernel option or something. Dale :-) :-)
