linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 04/11] x86/microcode_core_early.c: Define interfaces for early load ucode

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Date:	Sat, 18 Aug 2012 22:24:50 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	"Yu, Fenghua" <fenghua.yu@...el.com>
CC:	Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@....eng.br>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	"Mallick, Asit K" <asit.k.mallick@...el.com>,
	Tigran Aivazian <tigran@...azian.fsnet.co.uk>,
	Andreas Herrmann <andreas.herrmann3@....com>,
	Borislav Petkov <borislav.petkov@....com>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, x86 <x86@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 04/11] x86/microcode_core_early.c: Define interfaces for
 early load ucode

On 08/18/2012 07:38 PM, Yu, Fenghua wrote:
> 
> In this early phase, detecting vendor in initrd is much simpler code.
> Otherwise, detecting vendor by cpuid (and without cpuid) needs
> similar but different code as existing functions and coding would be
> awkward.
> 

I'm confused by this statement.  Getting the vendor from CPUID is a few
lines of code, and non-CPUID processors don't support microcode loading.

> Why name it ".hex" when you're loading binary data?  I suggest ".bin".  It
> is confusing to have .hex there, since you're not dealing with the Intel HEX
> format, nor anything text-like.

Actually I think we can also skip one level of indirection here... no
need to mention "microcode" twice.

kernel/x86/microcode/GenuineIntel or GenuineIntel.bin seems good
enough... the idea here of course is that the string can come from CPUID.

	-hpa
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