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Comment by orblivion | Hacker News Reader

Oh nice. I know the average user is going to go right ahead and update their CPU microcode.

Yes, they will. Microcode is hot-loaded. There is no way to permanently update a CPU's microcode; it is uploaded to the CPU on each OS boot. They come packaged in the appropriate Windows update or macOS update, or for example on Ubuntu you'll get them the next time you upgrade with apt. So to answer your question, the next time the user updates their operating system, provided the OS manufacturer has included the new firmware, the user will automatically get the new microcode which will get patched onto the CPU on each boot of that OS from then onwards.

Do you know why it can't be so easy with BIOS or Management Engine?

Average user? Even in the average corporate I never see anyone do firmware updates unless it's to solve a specific issue.

It also tends to be bad for the above average users here, most firmware patches tend to rely on windows software to install which is sub optimal when you've installed linux on the machine.

whats wrong about it? im gonna buy new laptop and it will be intel powered (dont kill me noob at intel cpus)

I'm not sure I'm following you, but I'm saying they're releasing a fix, as if that really deals with the problem. How many people are actually going to install the fix? How many people out there even know about these issues?

Going forward there need to be easy ways to update all of this stuff. These flaws won't stop coming out. It would be great if they got installed with OS updates, but I can understand if there's a security problem there.

Microcode updates are distributed as OS updates.

Maybe I'm using big words I don't understand. What is it that Lenovo and such are distributing as part of this? I know they're labeled as BIOS updates but I assumed it's more than that since the BIOS is a different component.

EDIT: So looking into it, it seems that CPU microcode is indeed the firmware, and I presume that the firmware is where a fix such as the one released here would be.

Somebody mentioned a Lenovo update elsewhere in comments. The recent ME updates required an update from Lenovo. I assumed the same would apply here but thankfully not. I wonder why the OS can't update ME firmware the same way.

Updated processor microcode has to be loaded to the processor on every boot, and this can be done either by the system BIOS/firmware or by the OS (or both).

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