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Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

securityweek.com

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Re: Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

#91

Post by rleigh »

mehrdadn wrote: post #58
pjc50 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I expect it also means is that you'll get inconsistencies when doing inter-process communication, since they'll be using different libraries with potential mismatches. In theory, but Linux systems tend to do very little IPC other than X11, pipelines, and IP-based communication, where the protocols tend to support running with different versions. In practice you can achieve multi-year uptimes with systems until…

X11 (or other window-related tooling) was exactly what I was thinking of actually, because every time I do a major Linux (Ubuntu) update I can't really launch programs and use my computer normally until I reboot. It always gets finicky and IPC mismatch is the best explanation I can think of.

That's D-BUS being a terribly specified and poorly implemented mess. Everything underneath should be solid.

Re: Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

#92

Post by giancarlostoro »

segmondy wrote: post #88
giancarlostoro wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really telling that even Linus Torvalds was not happy with their "fixes" and now Microsoft. Intel needs to start taking the situation completely seriously cause their actions don't imply they are.

Intel doesn't care. What choice do we have?

Before Intel Core processors became the standard hot processor I was an AMD guy. I'm heading back towards that route. This means no Macbook or Surfacebook for my next development laptop for me. If anyone wants my money they better build a developer worthy laptop with an AMD processor and a sweet AMD graphics card. Also AMD is working on providing open source GPU Vulkan drivers.

Re: Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

#93

Post by jrs235 »

mehrdadn wrote: post #37
beagle3 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very fundamental difference between how Unix and Windows view open files: On Windows, once the file is open, it is that filename that is open; You can't rename or delete it; Therefore, if you want to replace a DLL (or any other file) that is in use, you have to kill any program that uses it before you can do that; And if it's a fundamental library everything uses (USER32.DLL COMCTL.DLL etc), the only effec…

> On Windows, once the file is open, it is that filename that is open; You can't rename or delete it; This is wrong... there's no clear-cut thing like the "file name" or "file stream" that you can specify as "in-use". It depends on the specifics of how the file is opened; often you can rename but not delete files that are open. Some (but AFAIK not all) in-use DLLs are like this. They can be renamed but not deleted. A…

>So you can't delete in-use files entirely because then they would be allocated disk space but unreachable via any path.

Ah. This must be why I can't permanently delete files in use by a program but can sometimes "delete" them and send them to the recycle bin.

Re: Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

#94

Post by DominikD »

dotdi wrote: post #50
shultays wrote: post #49

Amount of fuck-up in this whole issue is mind blowing. I am getting more surprised with every new I get

Intel has been called out by Linus Torvalds several days ago for the crappy fixes they delivered for GNU/Linux. I would be very surprised if Intel actually shipped proper fixes for Windows. It's a shame, really.

And then another developer kindly explained why he's wrong. It's fun to listen to Linus' rants, sure, but he's not always correct.

Re: Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

#95

Post by peoplewindow »

x0x0 wrote: post #47
hishnash wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im really wanding they had more than 6months to do these patches and they did not bother testing on a good number of systems. Its not like MS + Intel dont have enough money to buy a few 1000 testing machines and get some testers on it.

I came here to ask the same thing. How did these folks squander six months?

I think Spectre may have appeared later, after Meltdown? Remember the investigations into what's possible were proceeding in parallel with the attempted fixes.

Also, CPU design changes take a long time. 6 months may seem a long time from the perspective of HackerNews node.js type hackers, but it's a bit harder to patch decades worth of CPU microcode than a website.

Re: Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

#96

Post by giancarlostoro »

kilburn wrote: post #90
segmondy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel doesn't care. What choice do we have?

For the longest time there was no practical alternative, but nowadays... AMD is back! The whole Ryzen lineup has turned out to be pretty good. You may even save some money in the process.

This is why I always preferred AMD. They gave you either more or the same bang for your buck. I hope they don't slack off on pushing to innovate ahead of Intel now that they're "even" in a sense.

Re: Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

#97

Post by chli »

tjoff wrote: post #18

I lost many hours over this last week. The system was unable to boot and finally a thread on reddit came to the rescue ( https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/7sbihd/howto_f... ). This actually made the system boot but there are some leftovers being installed on first boot that I've been unable to disable that also causes the system to be unable to boot. So now, the machine is running but as soon as it is res…

Same thing happened to me this week-end and we are not alone [1]. The worst is that it's actually the second time on this computer (Kaby Lake i3 on a MB with Intel B250 Chipset). I had the same issue in December last year (exact same behaviour with probably an earlier version of that hotfix).

I'm running with Windows Update service disabled till this is fixed for good !

[1] https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10...

Re: Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

#98

Post by mehrdadn »

rleigh wrote: post #91
mehrdadn wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

X11 (or other window-related tooling) was exactly what I was thinking of actually, because every time I do a major Linux (Ubuntu) update I can't really launch programs and use my computer normally until I reboot. It always gets finicky and IPC mismatch is the best explanation I can think of.

That's D-BUS being a terribly specified and poorly implemented mess. Everything underneath should be solid.

I mean, OK, but if Windows's GUI (or PowerShell, or whatever) crashed or misbehaved upon update, would you be satisfied with "that's win32k/DWM/whatever being a poorly implemented mess; everything underneath should be solid"?

Re: Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

#99

Post by mseebach »

kilburn wrote: post #90
segmondy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel doesn't care. What choice do we have?

For the longest time there was no practical alternative, but nowadays... AMD is back! The whole Ryzen lineup has turned out to be pretty good. You may even save some money in the process.

Has AMD processors been confirmed as not vulnerable? As I recall the original investigation only covered Intel processors, but hypothesized that AMD would be affected as well, as they more or less have the same fundamentals around branch prediction.

Re: Microsoft disables Spectre mitigations as Intel’s patches cause instability

#100

Post by zolthrowaway »

segmondy wrote: post #88
giancarlostoro wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really telling that even Linus Torvalds was not happy with their "fixes" and now Microsoft. Intel needs to start taking the situation completely seriously cause their actions don't imply they are.

Intel doesn't care. What choice do we have?

Vote with your wallet. That's really the only thing that you can do. Intel is too comfortable in their position as market leader. Until they start to feel some pressure, they have shown they don't really care. I know AMD is not a perfect company either, but I elected to buy a Ryzen processor for my upcoming build. People need to at least consider the competition without defaulting to "I need a processor, I buy the latest Intel chip."

Yes, I know that most people don't build new PCs or upgrade their processors that regularly. Yes, I know that many people don't have much of a choice because they have some requirement that currently ties them to Intel. However, those that do have that choice, should remember this debacle the next time they are buying a CPU/system (even if they are not doing it for awhile). Intel is hoping they can sweep this under the rug, we can't let them until they make amends. Do not buy an Intel chip until they've proven they will do better. I am not endorsing AMD either. You can still vote with your wallet by not buying anything at all. If enough people put off their upgrade, it would put a dent in Intel's bottom line. Things won't change until it hurts them financially.

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