intel-microcode n dmesg microcode reported on ubuntu 18.04

Question

while checking the latest intel-microcode. this is what i get.

is this normal that the timestamp does not tally?

    $ dpkg --list intel-microcode 
    Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
    | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
    |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
    ||/ Name                        Version            Architecture         
    Description  
    +++-===========================-
    ii  intel-microcode             3.20180807a.0ubunt amd64  
    Processor microcode firmware for Intel CPUs

    $ dmesg |grep microcode
    [    0.000000] microcode: microcode updated early to revision 0x8e, date = 2018-03-24
    [    0.874156] microcode: sig=0x806e9, pf=0x80, revision=0x8e
    [    0.874987] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2.

Answer 1

The microcode is loaded from your initrd (initial ramdisk), so to ensure your package is installed in your initrd/initramfs, the following command will re-create it

`sudo update-initramfs -u`

Note however

The date displayed does not correspond to the version of the intel-ucode package installed. It does show the last time Intel updated the microcode that corresponds to the specific hardware being updated https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/microcode

The intel-ucode in my 'archlinux' quote refers to your intel-microcode package in Ubuntu.
(I didn't find a Ubuntu reference, which is why I've used Arch's)

I did find on the Ubuntu Wiki 'Firmware Test Suite - microcode test'

This test checks to see if the firmware is loading that latest microcode for the CPUs https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FirmwareTestSuite/Reference/microcode

which should put your mind to rest; just run the test :)