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

:-)  :-)