mkinitfs does not include compressed firmware files
Current linux-lts and linux-virt kernels in Alpine Edge (and soon to be Alpine 3.15) compress the kernel modules.
When mkinitfs builds a new initramfs it runs "modinfo" against kernel modules to determine what firmware files they use. There are 2 places that "find" commands are used but they only scan for *.ko and so will miss compresses modules. Here are the appropriate lines:
https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/mkinitfs/-/blob/master/mkinitfs.in#L141 https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/mkinitfs/-/blob/master/mkinitfs.in#L143
This may impact on things like DRM graphics modules which rely on firmware to initialise correctly.
I think the search pattern should be changed to "*.ko.*" so that it works with various types of compression.
Edited by Dermot Bradley