Re: [PATCH] arm64: dts: socfpga: use consistent QSPI boot partition label

["NG, TZE YEE" <tze.yee.ng@altera.com>]

On 14/5/2026 10:44 am, sashiko-bot@kernel.org wrote:
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>
> Thank you for your contribution! Sashiko AI review found 1 potential issue(s) to consider:
> - [Critical] Renaming the MTD partition label breaks userspace ABI.
> --
>
> commit 4ade0c1cd1fb03537998130680736791486edcdb
> Author: Tze Yee Ng <tze.yee.ng@altera.com>
>
> arm64: dts: socfpga: use consistent QSPI boot partition label
>
> This commit aligns the QSPI boot partition label across multiple SoCFPGA board
> DTS files. It changes the label from u-boot to Boot and fpga data to match
> the combined boot and FPGA image layout.
>
>> diff --git a/arch/arm64/boot/dts/intel/socfpga_agilex5_socdk.dts b/arch/arm64/boot/dts/intel/socfpga_agilex5_socdk.dts
>> index 262bb3e8e5c72..5ce825dd6afb0 100644
>> --- a/arch/arm64/boot/dts/intel/socfpga_agilex5_socdk.dts
>> +++ b/arch/arm64/boot/dts/intel/socfpga_agilex5_socdk.dts
>> @@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ partitions {
>>                        #size-cells = <1>;
>>
>>                        qspi_boot: partition@0 {
>> -                             label = "u-boot";
>> +                             label = "Boot and fpga data";
>
> Does renaming this partition label break userspace ABI compatibility?
>
> Device tree MTD partition labels are exposed to userspace through /proc/mtd
> and sysfs, and are often used by utilities like mtd-utils or software update
> scripts to locate partitions by name rather than relying on dynamic device
> nodes.
>
> The u-boot label has been present in this file since commit a63766f32d62c
> (February 2025). Changing the label to Boot and fpga data might break existing
> userspace systems that rely on the old name to perform firmware updates.
>
> [ ... ]
>
> --
> Sashiko AI review · https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/eff34df0c67d39a26d20ec91eda8dd9e15f9f5cc.1778658884.git.tze.yee.ng@altera.com?part=1

The point of the patch is to remove an inconsistent and misleading
partition description across SoCFPGA SoCDK device trees. Several SoCDK
boards already describe this first QSPI region as "Boot and fpga data"
(e.g. socfpga_agilex_socdk.dts, socfpga_stratix10_socdk.dts,
socfpga_n5x_socdk.dts). The strings "u-boot" vs "Boot and fpga data"
were an inconsistency across products, not two different hardware layouts.

The historical "u-boot" wording reflected who consumes the region for
RSU / early boot, not what the image is. Keeping two different
human-readable labels for the same class of board and the same kind of
image was an accident of bring-up order, not a deliberate product split.
Aligning the label completes work that was already done for other
SoCFPGA SoCDK DTs in-tree and makes the reference designs read as one
product line.

This is a QSPI boot-time partition, not runtime. Systems that update
firmware typically use a controlled update mechanism (e.g., a Yocto
layer, swupdate, RAUC) rather than ad-hoc scripts hard-coding /proc/mtd
names, so we expect churn to be manageable and localized to those
integrations.

Regards,
Tze Yee