Re: powerpc/sparc problems

[Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>]

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 06:31:12PM +0800, Bean wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 6:14 PM, David Miller <davem@davemloft.net> wrote:
> >
> > Good luck when the compiler changes the interface and/or semantics of
> > these routines in a future version.  Will you enumerate your in-tree
> > copies by gcc version with ifdefs or similar?
> >
> > That's why gcc and it's libgcc are distributed together, and gcc
> > configures itself to link with a specific libgcc and only that libgcc.
> >
> > This whole things perfectly fine in GRUB when I implemented the
> > necessary machinery to find if these routines exist in libgcc at
> > configure time and to reference them properly in the build.
> >
> > They've merely been broken meanwhile and someone just needs to rectify
> > that regression.
> >
> 
> Hi,
> 
> To use the libgcc, we need to link the object file, this doesn't work
> in system that use non ELF format like mach-o. And actually, the int
> function rarely changed, and some project like openbios also include
> the libgcc function directly.

David is right.  We shouldn't embed a copy of libgcc code if we can avoid it.

If an OS uses mach-o, it just means when compiling native programs they need
to be in that format, but this is unrelated with the format used by GRUB.  GRUB
can be built on top of any OS, provided that its dependencies (including an
ELF-capable toolchain) were installed.

-- 
Robert Millan

  The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
  how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
  still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."