Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

On 12/09/2018 01:57 PM, J. Roeleveld wrote:
> On December 9, 2018 6:23:07 PM UTC, "Taiidan@×××.com" <Taiidan@×××.com> wrote:
>> On 12/07/2018 06:47 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>> On 07/12/2018 09:30, Dale wrote:
>>>> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>>>> If you want to see all of the installed packages that are affected,
>>>>> you need to set CPU_FLAGS_X86 to an empty string:
>>>>>
>>>>>    CPU_FLAGS_X86=""
>>>>>
>>>>> and then do "emerge -puDN --with-bdeps=y @world". This is because
>>>>> CPU_FLAGS_X86 is not empty by default. It contains sse and sse2 by
>>>>> default, because these are supported by all 64-bit CPUs.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What I did, I commented out the whole line and ran it that way.
>>>
>>> If you comment it out, it will have default values. If you set it to
>> an
>>> empty string, you should be able to see which packages make use of
>> the
>>> default flags (like sse and sse2.)
>>>
>>> Note it's a pretend emerge (-p). Just to check which packages you
>> have
>>> installed that make use of these flags.
>>>
>>>
>>>> One last question for anyone who has done this recently.  When
>> finished,
>>>> I'll have a FX-8350 CPU with 8 cores at 4.0/4.2GHz, 32GBs of memory
>> all
>>>> on a Gigabyte 970 series mobo.  Would there be any point in
>> upgrading to
>>>> a whole new rig or is what I have about as fast is reasonable to
>> build?
>>>> I don't do gaming or anything.  Even the GTX 650 video card is
>> likely
>>>> overkill for what I do here.  The older 200 series card is working
>> just
>>>> fine.  On one hand, my current build is several years old.  On the
>>>> other, computers seem to have reached their peak.  I'm sure there is
>>>> more powerful systems out there but would I be any better off with
>> one?
>>
>> Since the AM3+ and its C32/G34 Opteron counterparts are the last and
>> best x86 cpus without ME/PSP I would say you are better off with what
>> you have - the best piledriver cpus like the FX-8350+ are still able to
>> play the latest games and in a VM via IOMMU-GFX if you want.
>>
>> In any case I would consider a OpenPOWER (ppc64/ppc64le) arch system
>> (like the blackbird or talos 2) as an upgrade path instead of any
>> futher
>> x86 stuff as there aren't any black boxes, there is
>> documentation+firmware sources and the cpus are made in usa.
>
> Made in USA isn't necessarily a good thing when talking about not wanting any hidden back doors.

Hell of a lot better than buying black box hardware from china.

x86 is definitely backdoored due to the ME/PSP and various other DRM
features that mean you no longer own your x86 computer.

In the US you aren't going to prison for telling the government you
won't put a backdoor in your hardware whereas in china and many others
you would go to jail without even a trial even in western europe people
are jailed for saying the wrong things on the internet. It is currently
the hardest place for an authority figure to lean on you.

Since the only users of POWER are fortune 500's and the government
itself it needs to be secure and not fucked around with, ironically the
chinese government is buying OpenPOWER now as they want a secure, owner
controlled, highly documented and non-x86 high performance CPU (there is
absolutely no hardware code signing not even for the cpu microcode and
no blobs are required for hardware initiation unlike with new x86 stuff)

One doesn't have to put an actual func_backdoor backdoor in a CPU since
something so complex will have exploitable bugs that even the
manufacturer doesn't know about such as the (fixed via microcode) 2014
AMD Piledriver NMI to root exploit where you could get root and SMM
access from a tiny userspace script and that was in there for years
without anyone noticing.

> Not sure which country would be a reliable location though, I wouldn't trust Western European countries either.

USA is currently the best option since there have never been proven
backdoors in made in usa hardware but plenty in chinese made hardware
such as the recent motherboard hack chip scandal.