:Kernel Space: Using the Firmware Loader for Static Data
Kernel Space: Using the Firmware Loader for Static Data Jun 5, 2008, 09 :00 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (3869 reads) (Other stories by Jake Edge)
"Some device drivers need firmware to load into the hardware at initialization time. The kernel firmware loader interface exists to support that functionality, but it requires help from user space which may not be available in all environments. David Woodhouse has proposed a patch that would eliminate that requirement so that more drivers can use the firmware loader rather than craft their own solution.
"Embedded devices will be one of the main users of this ability. Many of those do not have a user space filesystem available at boot time--via initrd or initramfs--but they still need to access firmware images to download to peripherals..."
