460: CPU as a Service

LINUX Unplugged

A new Linux update allows Intel to control features in your CPU using hardware-level DRM.

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• London Meetup — Sat, Aug 6, 2022, 2:00 PM GMT
• Newest Version of Systemd Includes Experimental Feature for A/B-Style Updating — "Let's popularize image-based OSes," writes Lennart Poettering, "with modernized security properties built around immutability, SecureBoot, TPM2, adaptability, auto-updating, factory reset, uniformity — built from traditional distribution packages, but deployed via images."
• Fitting Everything Together — In this blog story I hope to provide that from my personal perspective, i.e. explain how I personally would build an OS and where I personally think OS development with Linux should go.
• systemd-sysupdate — This tool implements file, directory, or partition based update schemes, supporting multiple parallel installed versions of specific resources in an A/B (or even: A/B/C, A/B/C/D/, …) style. A/B updating means that when one version of a resource is currently being used, the next version can be downloaded, unpacked, and prepared in an entirely separate location, independently of the first, and — once complete — be activated, swapping the roles so that it becomes the used one and the previously used one becomes the one that is replaced by the next update, and so on.
• Thoughts on software-defined silicon — The benefits to Intel are clear. The company can do price differentiation among its customers in an attempt to extract the maximum revenue from each while simultaneously reducing the number of different hardware products it must carry in its catalog. The revenue stream from a processor will not necessarily stop once the CPU is purchased, and might continue indefinitely. The benefit for customers is not quite so clear. In theory, customers with minimal needs can avoid paying for expensive features they don't use and can "upgrade" their hardware without downtime if their needs change.
• platform/x86: Add Intel Software Defined Silicon driver — Intel Software Defined Silicon (SDSi) is a post manufacturing mechanism for activating additional silicon features. Features are enabled through a license activation process. The SDSi driver provides a per socket, sysfs attribute interface for applications to perform 3 main provisioning functions.
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• Pick: Mainline — A tool for installing the latest Linux kernels on Ubuntu-based distributions.