From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from hancock.steeleye.com ([71.30.118.248]:56217 "EHLO hancock.sc.steeleye.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751673AbXHUVtl (ORCPT ); Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:49:41 -0400 Subject: Re: RFC: drop support for gcc < 4.0 From: James Bottomley In-Reply-To: <20070821212129.GG30705@stusta.de> References: <20070821132038.GA22254@ff.dom.local> <20070821093103.3c097d4a.randy.dunlap@oracle.com> <20070821173550.GC30705@stusta.de> <20070821191959.GC2642@bingen.suse.de> <20070821195433.GE30705@stusta.de> <20070821202113.GF30705@stusta.de> <27c412eea99f1f80a3002e9668bd31f8@kernel.crashing.org> <20070821212129.GG30705@stusta.de> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:49:38 -0500 Message-Id: <1187732978.18410.51.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-arch-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Adrian Bunk Cc: Segher Boessenkool , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , Linus Torvalds , Jarek Poplawski , Andi Kleen , linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, Randy Dunlap List-ID: On Tue, 2007-08-21 at 23:21 +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > On Tue, Aug 21, 2007 at 10:49:49PM +0200, Segher Boessenkool wrote: > >> How many people e.g. test -rc kernels compiled with gcc 3.2? > > > > Why would that matter? It either works or not. If it doesn't > > work, it can either be fixed, or support for that old compiler > > version can be removed. > > One bug report "kernel doesn't work / crash / ... when compiled with > gcc 3.2, but works when compiled with gcc 4.2" will most likely be lost > in the big pile of unhandled bugs, not cause the removal of gcc 3.2 > support... What's the bugzilla or pointer to this report please? Those of us who use gcc-3 as the default kernel compiler will take it seriously (if it looks to have an impact to our kernel builds) otherwise we can tell you it's unreproducible/not a problem etc. James > > The only other policy than "only remove support if things are > > badly broken" would be "only support what the GCC team supports", > > which would be >= 4.1 now; and there are very good arguments for > > supporting more than that with the Linux kernel. > > No, it's not about bugs in gcc, it's about kernel+gcc combinations that > are mostly untested but officially supported. > > E.g. how many kernel developers use kernels compiled without > unit-at-a-time? And unit-at-a-time does paper over some bugs, > e.g. at about half a dozen section mismatch bugs I've fixed > recently are not present with it. > > But as the discussions have shown gcc 4.0 is currently too high for > making a cut, and it is not yet the right time for raising the minimum > required gcc version. > > > Segher > > cu > Adrian >