Linux firmware_class enhancements
This page documents progress on ongoing enhancements to the firmware_class, both ongoing development, theoretical issues, and desired bells/whistles.
Extensible firmware API
Being written.
Firmware signing
Being written.
Firmware calls on init and probe
Asynchronous probe was added to help with delayed boots caused by use of fw API calls, and by the systemd timeout. There is still an issue present when fw APIs are used on init or probe: the kernel cannot be sure that /lib/firmware is ready. In particular when switching initramfs with pivot_root(), etc, etc.
A coccinelle rule is being worked on which maps out the users of the firmware API on init and probe, interprocedurally (calls that calls fw API too), the list is pretty big, the patch / details wil be posted soon for review.
More documentation needs to be written...
Desired features
Add a hook to let drivers stale cache (or should the OS only do this and hide the symbol?)