[Pkg-electronics-devel] Bug#1055171: fpga-icestorm: icebram incompatible with yosys 0.23

[Andras Pal]

Hi Daniel,

sure, please find attached this simplistic example for this issue. Just 
enter `make`. Under bullseye, it should print:

Found and replaced 1 instances of the memory.

Under bookworm, it prints:

Found and replaced 0 instances of the memory.

and the memory does not get updated (i.e. the top_dummy.asc and top.asc 
will basically identical). If i upgrade to the trixie package for 
fpga-icestorm and fpga-icestorm-chipdb, then it will work again and the 
BRAM initialization values get updated. The *.pcf file (and the test 
environment itself) is designed for the ICE40HX8K-B-EVN board.

Andras

On Wed, 1 Nov 2023, Daniel Gröber wrote:

> Package: fpga-icestorm
> Version: 0~20220915gita545498-3
> X-Debbugs-Cc: Andras Pal <apal at szofi.net>
>
> Hi Andras,
>
> On Wed, Nov 01, 2023 at 04:52:25PM +0100, Andras Pal wrote:
>> I'm using the yosys/nextpnr/icestorm toolchain regularly under Debian and
>> after upgrading to bookworm i noted (after some debugging) that in some
>> cases yosys-0.23 tends to generate memory instances whose initialization
>> values cannot be replaced with the `icebram` utility in a similar way like
>> in the previous (and in the following) releases.
>
> Do you have a reproducer/example for this? I haven't had the need to use
> icebram in my projects yet so having a regression test in the package would
> be good.
>
>> By checking the source code on github, i found that `icebram` underwent a
>> significant refactoring, likely after freezing the bookworm release (i.e.
>> sometimes in between Sept '22 and Feb '23). And indeed, after manually
>> downloading installing the trixie version (20230218gitd20a5e9-1) of the
>> fpga-icestorm and fpga-icestrom-chipdb packages, the toolchain started to
>> work again as it is expected.
>>
>> Is it possible to backport this upgraded version of `icebram` to bookworm as
>> well in order to be compatible with the shipped yosys version? I don't know
>> what is the severity of this bug - it is indeed not a security issue, but
>> otherwise the packeges are broken in this sense. And it might be beneficial
>> for another users and projects as well.
>
> Sholdn't be a problem. There's two ways to go, either we find a (small)
> patch that fixes the issue in the version from stable or (with some
> negotiation with the release team) we get permission to upgrade the version
> in stable.
>
> --Daniel
>
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