<div dir="ltr">The Spectre vulnerability affects AMD and ARM processors, too, apparently. See: <<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerability)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerability)</a>>. That isn't the only place I've read that. Modern CPUs are very complex and their inner workings are proprietary so how likely is it that AMD CPUs don't have this or other equally bad vulnerabilities? We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. GPUs and other components, like the BIOS are likely to have quite severe vulnerabilities that we don't know about, yet.<div><br></div><div>By the way, I don't see the point of doing a new build with a CPU that is four generations old and with only 16GB that ends up costing $1600+. You could purchase a refurbished, off-lease workstation of that vintage for about a quarter of the price with more RAM. It would not likely have an SSD but you could always add one if you really wanted to.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Regards,<div><br></div><div>Clifford Ilkay</div><div><br></div><div>+1 647-778-8696</div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 10:33 AM, Steve Petrie, P.Eng. via talk <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:talk@gtalug.org" target="_blank">talk@gtalug.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div bgcolor="#ffffff">
<div><font face="Arial"><strong>Warm Greetings To GTALUG
Members,</strong></font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">Just as year 2018 arrived and I prepared to push
the Order button, on the various parts for building a new desktop PC to run
debian LInux, replacing an ancient Dell Windows XP PC, along comes revelation of
the Intel Meltdown CPU bug, to muddy the picture.</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">My present new desktop PC build spec (much modified
according to some excellent earlier advice from GTALUG members) has an Intel Z97
LGA 1150 Intel 4-Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Haswell Processor. (</font><font size="2" face="Arial">I know, I know, the Intel Haswell CPU series is obsolete, but let's
just ignore this fact for the present discussion.)</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">I attach a copy of the present build
spec:</font></div>
<ul>
<li><font size="2" face="Arial"><<font color="#0000ff"><a href="http://ca.pcpartpicker.com" target="_blank">ca.pcpartpicker.com</a> --
deb8_PC_business_24_7_duty_<wbr>bare_v1 - summary - Steve_Petrie -
20170722.odt.pdf</font>>;</font>
</li><li><font size="2" face="Arial"><<font color="#0000ff"><a href="http://ca.pcpartpicker.com" target="_blank">ca.pcpartpicker.com</a> --
deb8_PC_business_24_7_duty_<wbr>bare_v1 - accessories - Steve_Petrie -
20170722.odt.pdf</font>>;</font></li></ul>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">* * *</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">* * *</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">It seems to me that, with regard to the Intel
Meltdown bug, I have two basic options:</font></div>
<ul>
<li><font size="2" face="Arial"><strong>1.</strong> Just accept the Meltdown bug
situation, proceed with the PC build using the Intel CPU, and live
with the perforrmance hit that comes with the fix in the Linux kernel for
the Meltdown bug.<br> </font>
</li><li><font size="2" face="Arial"><strong>2.</strong> Invest a week or two to
investigate AMD CPU options that will avoid altogether the Intel Meltdown bug.
This strategy could lead to a lengthy necessary respecification of other
components in the PC build spec, depending on how an AMD architecture fits
with peripherals.</font></li></ul>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">An ARM CPU is not an option, as one of the other
operating system I plan to run on the new PC is DragonFlyBSD, which only
runs on Intel and AMD processors (not ARM).</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">* * *</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">* * *</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">*** LATE BREAKING NEWS ***</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">Speaking of DragonFlyBSD, here is an interesting
snippet just in from the dfly <<a href="mailto:users@dragonflybsd.org" target="_blank">users@dragonflybsd.org</a>> email
discussion forum:</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div>Subject: Re: Meltdown and Spectre information update</div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div>Matthew Dillon wrote:<br>> (2) Intel is supplying a Microcode patch for
newer CPUs, but it's hard<br>> to say how many BIOS makers will ever adopt
it.<br><br>I wouldn't count on it very much, especially nowadays when hardware
is<br>very usable far longer than vendors are even willing to support
it.<br><br>But that's the reason why Linux kernel provides a way to update
a<br>microcode early during boot or even in runtime. Maybe it's a good
idea<br>to implement it for DragonFly as well.<br><br><a>https://github.com/torvalds/<wbr>linux/blob/master/<wbr>Documentation/x86/microcode.<wbr>txt</a><br><br><font size="2" face="Arial">Could be a promising fix for Meltdown, using the Linux
microcode update facility to install the Intel microcode patch for the Meltdown
bug. I may need to switch to a newer Intel CPU (than Haswell), if no Meltdown
microcode fix is forthcoming from Intel for Haswell.</font><br></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">* * *</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">* * *</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">Do GTALUG members have any opinions on the relative
merits of the strategies I suggest above <strong>??</strong></font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">Any comments / advice from GTALUG members,
regarding the above strategies (or any other strategy that comes to mind)
would be gratefully received.</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">And then there is the Spectre bug also lurking
<strong>...</strong></font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial">Thanks in advance,</font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font face="Arial"><strong>Steve</strong></font></div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"></font> </div>
<div><font size="2" face="Arial"><a href="mailto:apetrie@aspetrie.net" target="_blank">apetrie@aspetrie.net</a></font></div></div>
<br>---<br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br></div>