diff --git a/.gitlab-ci/container/create-rootfs.sh b/.gitlab-ci/container/create-rootfs.sh
index f3468fef634..44f983af0c0 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci/container/create-rootfs.sh
+++ b/.gitlab-ci/container/create-rootfs.sh
@@ -71,8 +71,7 @@ apt-get -y install --no-install-recommends \
     waffle-utils \
     wget \
     xinit \
-    xserver-xorg-core \
-    xz-utils
+    xserver-xorg-core
 
 # Needed for ci-fairy, this revision is able to upload files to
 # MinIO and doesn't depend on git
@@ -95,10 +94,6 @@ chmod +x  /init
 # Strip the image to a small minimal system without removing the debian
 # toolchain.
 
-# xz compress firmware so it doesn't waste RAM at runtime on ramdisk systems
-find /lib/firmware -type f -print0 | \
-    xargs -0r -P4 -n4 xz -T1 -C crc32
-
 # Copy timezone file and remove tzdata package
 rm -rf /etc/localtime
 cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/Etc/UTC /etc/localtime
@@ -169,7 +164,6 @@ UNNEEDED_PACKAGES="apt libapt-pkg6.0 "\
 "init-system-helpers "\
 "bash "\
 "cpio "\
-"xz-utils "\
 "passwd "\
 "libsemanage1 libsemanage-common "\
 "libsepol1 "\
diff --git a/.gitlab-ci/image-tags.yml b/.gitlab-ci/image-tags.yml
index 68ed17b9483..30606a2f2e4 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci/image-tags.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci/image-tags.yml
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ variables:
    DEBIAN_X86_TEST_VK_TAG: "2022-02-21-libdrm"
 
    FEDORA_X86_BUILD_TAG: "2022-02-21-libdrm"
-   KERNEL_ROOTFS_TAG: "2022-02-23-skqp"
+   KERNEL_ROOTFS_TAG: "2022-02-23-noxz"
 
    WINDOWS_X64_BUILD_PATH: "windows/x64_build"
    WINDOWS_X64_BUILD_TAG: "2022-20-02-base_split"