I have a system with an AMD Ryzen 9 CPU and AMD Radeon RX 6800 GPU running Debian 12. Today there is a security update recommended for the intel-microcode. Checking for updates reveals my system believes it needs the update, but I am not informed enough to understand why/if that is true. I managed to find a Debian article on microcode and it seems to indicate it is specific to either intel or AMD. Should I trust the system update and follow through? I’m hoping someone can shed some light on this. My proficiency with Debian is likely not where it needs to be it seems.

  • BillibusMaximus@sh.itjust.works
    81·
    2 days ago

    If you don’t have an Intel CPU, then you shouldn’t need it. At least, I think it’s only for CPUs and not for other intel-based devices (NIC, graphics, whatever).

    It’s prompting for upgrade because it’s already installed. It’s recommended (but not required) by initramfs-tools, so that’s probably why it’s installed (recommended packages are installed by default). oops, read that wrong. Intel-microcode recommends initramfs-tools.

    You may want to run

    apt-rdepends intel-microcode

    to see what pulled it in.

    But you should be able to uninstall it, and then it won’t prompt you any more.