[coreboot] blobs: is there a reason for intel microcode version 20150121?

[Nico Huber]

Hi Martin,

On 21.11.2017 09:31, Martin Kepplinger wrote:
> Since there are many releases of Intel's cpu microcode since 2015-01, I
> was wondering if
> there's a reason why coreboot, if at all, uses this one.

the explanation might be a simple one, e.g. the last person who tried to
update it, didn't know the new package exists at all. I bet that's true
for 99% of the coreboot community.

Last time I checked for microcode updates (for Skylake) I had to click
through a license at intel.com and promise not to redistribute it! And
if you ask Intel employees about it, they just ignore you. So I'm overly
pleased to see your link ;) thank you very much! Please tell us, for
future reference, how you found it.

Now if you also tell us that it comes with a license that allows redris-
tribution, that would be like an early Christmas xD That we don't have
the (mandatory!) updates for current Intel processors in our blobs repo-
sitory is one of the big bummers that make the upstream coreboot ex-
perience suck.

> 
> I know very little about it really. It may well be potentially bad to
> simply use the latest version,

No, it's considered to be the best thing to use the latest updates.

> but in case it's really only because nobody did it, I might prepare a
> patch to use
> downloadmirror.intel.com/27337/eng/microcode-20171117.tgz instead
> (someday, after
> I testing it on my device).

Please do so. Though, the `update-microcodes.sh` doesn't fit the binary
format in the new package any more. I guess it can be replaced with a
simpler script, e.g.

    for f in ??-??-??; do
        model=$(echo $f | sed -e's/\(0.\)-\(.\)\(.\)-0./0x\2\1\3/')
        dir=$(printf "model_%xx\n" $model)
        mkdir -p $dir
        cat $f >>$dir/microcode.bin
    done

Best,
Nico