On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 1:11 AM, Gerald Otter gerald.otter@gmail.com wrote:
Just for my own understanding; is it common for microcode loading to be required as part of the booting process, as opposed to being optional updates?
Yes. Long ago, we let the kernel load microcode. Then, at some point, on some CPUs, it became essential to load microcode before booting the kernel.
The point at which microcode must be loaded has moved several times, and now it is essential to load it in some cases before the payload is loaded.
Even in the case that a modern CPU might boot without loading microcode, you are taking your chances. You can get silent data corruption if you don't load the correct microcode. You might end up with files containing garbage data because you are not running microcode containing bug fixes.
ron