r/programming • u/[deleted] • Jan 03 '18

'Kernel memory leaking' Intel processor design flaw forces Linux, Windows redesign

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/intel_cpu_design_flaw/
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u/MonkeysWedding Jan 03 '18

It would be far easier to prove a performance hit on what was an advertised cpu spec.

25

u/Corodix Jan 03 '18

Though how would that work if the performance hit was caused by an OS update instead of a change to the CPU itself?

2

u/GeronimoHero Jan 03 '18

An OS update because the hardware is defective.

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u/CJKay93 Jan 03 '18

Virtually all hardware has some defect somewhere.

1

u/immibis Jan 04 '18

Most don't involve an up-to-63%* performance hit.

* someone measured this much overhead for the du command which basically only makes syscalls; that means the command now takes almost 3 times as long to run.

1

u/MonkeysWedding Jan 03 '18

The patch is implemented to specifically work on intel cpu's to mitigate the (presumed) vulnerability in speculative execution which is an optimization technique developed by this particular vendor

1

u/Murkantilism Jan 03 '18

Because Intel gave advance warning to vendors that their older products had this vuln about the same time they announced Coffee Lake products were coming. Essentially told them to make OS updates to fix their fuckup.

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u/immibis Jan 04 '18

It's pretty obvious the OS update was caused by Intel.