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- <!DOCTYPE html><head><meta charset="utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1, shrink-to-fit=no" /><meta name="keywords" content="GNU, Emacs, Libre Software, Hurd, Guile, Guix" /><meta name="description" content="GNUcode.me is a website focusing on libre software projects, especially the GNU project." /><link type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" title="GNUcode.me -- Feed" href="/feed.xml" /><a rel="me" href="https://fosstodon.org/@thegnuguy"></a><link type="text/css" href="css/footer.min.css" rel="stylesheet"></link><link type="text/css" href="css/header.min.css" rel="stylesheet"></link><link type="text/css" href="css/main.min.css" rel="stylesheet"></link><title>Boot Firmware and CPU Microcode — GNUcode.me</title></head><body><header><nav><ul><li><a href="index.html">GNUcode.me</a></li><li><a href="services.html">Services</a></li><li><a href="about.html">About</a></li><li><a href="business-ideas.html">Business-ideas</a></li></ul></nav></header><h1>Boot Firmware and CPU Microcode</h1><main><section class="basic-section-padding"><article><h3>by Joshua Branson — January 11, 2021</h3><div><p>My current laptop was a libreboot-ed Lenovo T400. It worked fairly well,
- except under huge load. For instance just using
- <a href="https://kdenlive.org/en/">kdenlive</a> for 5+ minutes is enough to stress the CPU,
- which causes some issues: namely Linux forcibly restarting my machine. My
- laptop also forcibly restarts randomly once a week or so, usually when watching
- lots of youtube videos. This has been the case for a few months.</p><p>I finally posted in the <code>#libreboot</code> irc channel about the issue, and
- <a href="https://libreboot.org/">libreboot</a> founder <a href="https://vimuser.org/">Leah Rowe</a>
- mentioned that the reason my computer was unstable was because it lacked the
- updated CPU microcode. Leah also mentioned that
- <a href="https://libreboot.org">libreboot.org</a> used the CPU microcode, because you don't
- want your server randomly crashing on your website under huge load.</p><p>Let's back up for a second and explain libreboot and CPU microcode.
- <a href="https://libreboot.org">Libreboot</a>, is a free boot firmware (BIOS replacement),
- which is the first thing that starts when you press the power button. Free
- software users do NOT like proprietary BIOSs, so we prefer libreboot (which
- works on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_T_series">old laptops circa
- 2008</a>) [^1].</p><p>CPU microcode is software that runs at a very low level on your processor. It
- turns out that processors are complex beasts, and its easy to mess them up. To
- help fix this situation, CPU developers use CPU microcode. If the processor has
- a tiny bug or faulty issue, then Intel or AMD can ship updated microcode to fix
- the solution. For example, a fair amount of the CPU microcode updates attempt
- to address recent CPU vulnerabilities like <a href="https://heartbleed.com/">heartbleed</a>
- and <a href="https://meltdownattack.com/">meltdown and spectre</a>. At least that's what
- Intel and AMD says they do, but the issue for libre software developers is that
- CPU microcode source code is not released. Therefore it is proprietary. So we
- cannot verify what the updated source code does.</p><p>So the free software user can choose to live with unstable machines without
- updated microcode, or update the microcode and potentially avoid CPU
- vulnerabilities and potentially run
- <a href="https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary.en.html">malware</a>. I'm deciding
- that I prefer machines that won't crash on me randomly, which is why my T400 is
- now using <a href="https://retroboot.org">retroboot</a>, which is a fork of libreboot that
- optionally provides the updated CPU microcode.</p><p>Anyway, as I was chatting to libreboot developer Leah Rowe, Leah pointed me
- toward <a href="https://retroboot.org">retroboot</a>, which is a fork of libreboot that
- optionally provides CPU microcode updates. Leah mentioned that retroboot is
- Leah's new project. As I was chatting to Leah, Leah on the fly added T400
- support to retroboot project and provided me with a new rom to flash mine that
- included the updated CPU microcode.</p><p>First I needed to boot linux with <code>iomem=relaxed</code>, then I flashed my rom and
- rebooted. Now my laptop can actually use kdenlive and not crash!</p><p>Leah talked some more about retroboot, which is attempting to do some crazy boot
- things. Like minimize grub (actually removing modules <em>and code</em>), use a
- different build system, use linuxboot, including seabios and tianobios in the
- flash rom, multi-lingual grub, etc. Leah also plans on submitting updates to
- libreboot where appropriate. Fun times ahead.</p><p>[^1]: Libreboot powers old laptops. A modern alternative and powerful free BIOS
- powered machines include the <a href="https://www.raptorcs.com/TALOSII/">Talos II
- system</a>.</p></div></article></section></main><footer><p>© 2020 Joshua Branson. The text on this site is free culture under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International license.</p><p>This website is build with Haunt, a static site generator written in Guile Scheme. Source code is <a href="https://notabug.org/jbranso/gnucode.me">available.</a></p><p>The color theme of this website is based off of the famous <a href="#3f3f3f" target="_blank">zenburn</a> theme.</p></footer></body>
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