Through the Open Firmware Client Interface (CIF), Linux can not only find out about the underlying hardware in terms of what is present and at what addresses, Linux can also call back into the firmware to take advantage of firmware services to utilize devices in a hardware independent manner. Access to real-time clock chips, nonvolatile storage devices and even network and video devices can all be abstracted from the Linux kernel with the details of manipulating the hardware left to Open Firmware.

FirmWorks's Open Firmware provides developers with a rich set of debugging tools for breakpointing, stepping through, disassembling and analyzing Linux startup code. These features alone can save weeks of development time.