> Good thing is we can load old microcode on Linux
You cannot load old microcode anywhere. The CPU won't let you.
The OS feeds the CPU a blob, the CPU checks that it's signed by Intel (to prevent modifications), and it additionally checks that the version number is newer than the currently-running code. If it's not, it won't be loaded.
If you have a CPU with the old microcode versions, you can keep it around, but if you update your BIOS you'll find it will bring the new microcode in and you can't downgrade after boot. If you're lucky the BIOS manufacturer wasn't too careful with signing their BIOS and you can replace the microcode blob, but that's a huge hassle.
You cannot load old microcode anywhere. The CPU won't let you.
The OS feeds the CPU a blob, the CPU checks that it's signed by Intel (to prevent modifications), and it additionally checks that the version number is newer than the currently-running code. If it's not, it won't be loaded.
If you have a CPU with the old microcode versions, you can keep it around, but if you update your BIOS you'll find it will bring the new microcode in and you can't downgrade after boot. If you're lucky the BIOS manufacturer wasn't too careful with signing their BIOS and you can replace the microcode blob, but that's a huge hassle.