Meltdown and Spectre patches leave some Ubuntu systems unbootable

As if the Meltdown and Spectre chip bugs were not enough of a problem in their own right, the patches designed to fix them are proving to be a major headache as well. The latest victims are users of Ubuntu Xenial 16.04, some of whom are reporting that installing the patches leaves their computers unbootable. Windows users with AMD systems have run into a similar problem, causing Microsoft to halt the rollout of its patches. There have also been predictions, anecdotes and benchmarks that suggest Meltdown patches are causing performance issues, despite Intel insistence that the impact is small. Now… [Continue Reading]