Latest genkernel disabled early microcode loading [1]. While I don't understand why you disabled that option (i.e. for recent Intel processors you can't use microcode_ctl anymore like you can with older processors... so now I have some systems which are unbootable per default) please add documentation to "genkernel --help" (like the man page) and add an option stub to "/etc/genkernel.conf". PS: Maybe we can autodetect CPU and disable early micrcode loading per default only for older system? Or do you have reports for any recent processor which only supports early microcode loading but is failing? [1] https://gitweb.gentoo.org/proj/genkernel.git/commit/?id=c2eebda7f0e16390ab0dd45d604285fba403abb8
[master c54a9a2] Document microcode & NFS more. 2 files changed, 10 insertions(+) Detection makes the assumption that you're building for the current system, which not always a valid assumption. The genkernel change caused microcode to be included in some bootable media, which in turn didn't boot on the problematic systems anymore. What CPUs do you have that support ONLY early loading, and not later loading?
The other reason I think it should be disabled by default, is that the new option came in enabled by default, and that caused a ~10% increase in the initramfs size.
(In reply to Robin Johnson from comment #1) > What CPUs do you have that support ONLY early loading, and not later loading? I hit this with various >=Haswell processors in desktop/notebooks and with Xeons in HPE ProLiant Gen8 servers. Please see bug 528712 as well. (In reply to Robin Johnson from comment #2) > The other reason I think it should be disabled by default, is that the new > option came in enabled by default, and that caused a ~10% increase in the > initramfs size. Well, but with recent processors that's now the only way to do reliable microcode updates. Not sure if an increased initramfs is a problem nowadays. I can only imagine people working on embedded devices at the moment who maybe dislike the default but they probably know what they are doing and turn it of. I also like the idea from Vapier in https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=557278#c0, i.e. detect the default based on kernel cfg. If the user has enabled early microcode update he/she probably want that...
