device tree support and GPMC

Hi,

i’am trying to move some FPGA cape support code to device-tree to use with the beaglebone-black and i’am struggling to get this working. My device tree overlay is divided in two framents. Th first fragment configure the pin-muxing and the second configure the gpmc timings. When trying to load the first fragment only (second fragment removed) it does not modify the pin-muxing, even if my device appears in the slots.

From what i understand the a device-tree overlay will not be loaded as long as the compatible driver is not loaded, so is there any mean to force the overlay activation for use in a user-space app (toggling pins) ?

thanks,