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.

This is what happens Larry, when you find a stranger in the alps.

This pic made me smile.

I haven’t been to DebConf since before COVID, but I definitely recognize a few people in that pic.

I’ve been using Debian since 2000 (potato).

I’ve occasionally had to use other distros for work (Red Hat or Ubuntu, typically), or to verify/troubleshoot bugs reports in upstream packages.

But my preference is Debian all the way, for servers or workstations.

It’s stable, and it has a great community. Also ideologically speaking, it has the Debian Social Contract and Debian Free Software Guidelines.

Ah, ok. I guess I misunderstood.

I’m afraid I don’t have any other suggestions that haven’t already been made elsewhere in the thread.

Best of luck, and I hope you get it figured out.

Shot in the dark here…

You said that blacklisting the module brought back your device, but not the sound. Is it possible that pulse is selecting the dummy as the default interface?

Before reloading alsa and restarting pulse - If you go into pavucontrol and change the input/output devices to your sound card, does the sound start working?

If that’s the case, then you should be able to edit your pulse config to force your audio device to be default, regardless of whether or not the dummy is present.

(No idea about the dummy device, sorry)