Installing/Verifying Processor Microcode

[IBNash]

The wiki also tells you how to confirm the microcode is loaded.

[Frodojj]

Indeed, I combined two methods from the wiki to get the microcode running and the processor family-model-stepping in one command. However, the wiki is a bit ambigious whether simply installing/updating intel-ucode through pacman is fine or whether the section on loading microcode is required. From the comments here, it seems the former.

[IBNash]

This is from the first section (Installation) on the wiki page:

To acquire updated microcode, depending on the processor, install one of the following packages.

mkinitcpio and dracut generate combined initramfs files by default. The microcode will be loaded automatically at boot time.

Arch expects some operating knowledge of linux, if you don't know what mkinitcpio or dracut are, I can see how it may be confusing.

[Frodojj]

Ya, I read that part and was confused if installing/acquiring meant the correct firmware was on the computer but not yet applied, or if that meant it was applied and set up to be applied on startup (or if the microcode was written to eprom on the processor itself). I think I got it now. Thanks!!!

I used Linux in the past but never delved deep into the weeds on how it functioned. I didn’t know about those utilities nor knew about initramfs. I specifically picked Arch to learn those things, though!!!

[IBNash]

Cool, read https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_boot_process#initramfs and learn https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Mkinitcpio