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by tenebrisalietum 2328 days ago
I think firmware images are typically not the fixed ROM code the CPU first encounters upon startup, even if they contain U-Boot. Especially if stored in NAND flash they probably aren't.

AR7 platform, for example, the MIPS core runs a small ROM that initializes RAM, then reads some blocks from flash. Not sure how much code you'd need to unpack a tar.gz but completely possible.