v2.9

Highlights

• Standalone qdl reset subcommand: kicks a board out of EDL or crash mode over Sahara without uploading a programmer, falling back to a
  Firehose power reset when one is already running (#307)
• qdl ks no longer needs a device node: it uses the standard usb/qud backends, so kickstart works over libusb and on Windows and can
  replace QSaharaServer on flashless boards (#300)
• New create-sahara-archive subcommand to build a Sahara programmer archive from a contents.xml or a list of images
  (#303)
• UFS provisioning fixes: the commit step gets a longer timeout and a device that resets right after committing the configuration descriptor
  is reported as success (#314, #322)
• NAND program tags carry the partition label, so programmers that resolve partitions by name apply the bad-block adjusted offset
  (#306)
• Sahara end-of-image and done status codes are decoded into human-readable descriptions (#336)
• Millisecond timestamps on --debug diagnostics to spot stalls and correlate host and device activity (#321)
• Second hardening batch across parsers, backends and the build (#302)
• USB backend fixes: zero-length packet reads are deferred to the next real transfer, so Firehose no longer stalls on xHCI controllers
  that complete the speculative read early (ASMedia ASM2142/3142); --serial falls back to iSerialNumber when iProduct carries
  no serial, retries transient string descriptor reads right after enumeration and matches case-insensitively
  (#346, #348)
• Readable output: --color[=auto|always|never], ERR:/WARN: prefixes, uppercase subsystem tags, result lines with size and rate,
  a single run summary line and -q/--quiet for CI and production lines (#341)
• Linux udev rules are installed with qdl, granting local users access to EDL and crashdump devices without running as root
  (#342)
• Leaner builds: zip container support is a meson feature option (-Dzip-container=disabled) and the meson floor is lowered to 0.56 so qdl
  can be packaged for EL9 (#299, #333)
• Document official packages: qdl is in Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and EPEL, and an official Homebrew formula
  is available in homebrew-core (brew install qdl) (#338)
• The HIL suite runs unattended on self-hosted Linux and macOS runners with real boards, including VIP end to end
  (#296, #340)
• Documentation refreshed and split into per-topic guides under docs/ (#329,
  #317)

What's Changed

• qdl: let kickstart use the standard device backends by @igoropaniuk in #300
• meson: make zip container support optional by @igoropaniuk in #299
• For linux msm/create sahara archive by @quic-bjorande in #303
• qdl: add a standalone reset subcommand by @igoropaniuk in #307
• Harden error paths across parsers, backends and the build by @igoropaniuk in #302
• Run the HIL suite unattended on self-hosted runners by @igoropaniuk in #296
• firehose: deduplicate the chunk-streaming loop by @igoropaniuk in #308
• ufs: replace module globals with a caller-owned context by @igoropaniuk in #309
• firehose: send the partition label in NAND program tags by @franciscojsfc in #306
• README: document installer package creation by @quic-bjorande in #317
• commitlint: recognize Closes as a footer trailer by @igoropaniuk in #319
• firehose: give the UFS provisioning commit a longer timeout by @igoropaniuk in #314
• qdl: decouple helper modules from the CLI front-end by @igoropaniuk in #313
• Add missing stdint.h include by @aekoroglu in #324
• github: build on ubuntu 26.04 runners by @igoropaniuk in #327
• github: drop macos-14 and build on macos-15 and macos-26 runners by @igoropaniuk in #328
• README: refresh and split into docs/ by @igoropaniuk in #329
• ux: add consistent timestamps to debug diagnostics by @igoropaniuk in #321
• meson: lower the required meson version to 0.56 by @igoropaniuk in #333
• firehose: treat -ENODEV on commit=1 as success after UFS provisioning by @JohnSagaQuic in #322
• qdl: split the flashing front-end from the CLI plumbing by @igoropaniuk in #323
• sahara: describe status codes in end-of-image and done packets by @bhavyaVeera in #336
• github: prepare CI for the move to the Qualcomm GitHub organization by @igoropaniuk in #335
• README: document distribution packages and Homebrew by @igoropaniuk in #338
• github: run the HIL suite on the macOS runner by @igoropaniuk in #340
• ux: colored output, level and subsystem prefixes, run summary and --quiet by @igoropaniuk in #341
• udev: install rules for EDL device access by @lool in #342
• usb: defer ZLP reads to real transfers by @agumarcolin in #346
• usb: fall back to iSerialNumber and retry transient string reads by @igoropaniuk in #348

New Contributors

• @franciscojsfc made their first contribution in #306
• @aekoroglu made their first contribution in #324
• @JohnSagaQuic made their first contribution in #322
• @bhavyaVeera made their first contribution in #336
• @lool made their first contribution in #342
• @agumarcolin made their first contribution in #346

Testing credits

Thanks to everyone who helped test v2.9-rc1 in #345:

• @igoropaniuk tested on RB3Gen2 (secure) and Uno Q across Linux and Windows
• @JohnSagaQuic tested on Kaanapali, RB3, Hawi and NordAU (SA8797P)

Full Changelog: v2.8...v2.9