[Bug 107168] Allow to load firmware during run-time (after initialization)

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107168

--- Comment #4 from Paul Menzel <pmenzel+bugs.freedesktop at molgen.mpg.de> ---
(In reply to Alex Deucher from comment #3)
> (In reply to Paul Menzel from comment #2)
> > (In reply to Alex Deucher from comment #1)
> > > You need the firmware for initialization.
> > 
> > What’s the technical reason for this. Why can’t certain parts of the
> > hardware be initialized later on?
> 
> You can't do anything other than very limited modesetting until the
> firmwares are loaded.

That would be enough for me for entering the LUKS password.

> You might as well just use the efifb driver and then load the driver later
> after the filesystem is available.

There are several problems with that.

1.  No UEFI based firmware is used, but a coreboot based one.
2.  To boot fast, I like to load the Radeon/AMDGPU driver directly, and not
spent precious milliseconds loading other display drivers (efifb, corebootfb).
Not having to include these makes the Linux kernel image a little smaller and
loading it faster.
3.  Currently loading `radeon` on an ASRock E350M1 and Asus F2A85-M takes
roughly two seconds, which is longer then the OS needs to start. So it’d be
great to be able to load the firmware while GDM for example starts.

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