Linux Kernel include files

Joerg Schilling
2007-06-21T22:52:59Z

Hi all,

you might know that since ~ 2 years, the Sun Studio compilers
are available for Linux. Given the fact that they typically produce
faster code than GCC and that they offer more debug/optimizing features,
they are worth testing.

While it is no problem to use Sun Studio for non-Linux-specific programs,
it is impossible to compile programs using Sun Studio if these programs offer
Linux specific features.

Star ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/star/alpha/ offers support for archiving ext2
file flags. If star is compiled using Sun Studio, star's autoconfiguration will
disable support for the Linux specific features because it detects "broken"
include files.

Cdrtools ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/alpha/ offer support for an OS
dependent SCSI transport. Cdrtools cannot be compiled wihout support for SCSI
transport, so it is impossible to use Sun Studio to compile cdrtools.

Why does this happen?

Well, the reason is that in order to support Linux specific features, you need
to include Linux specific include files (the Linux kernel include files). As
these include files are currently not written in vanilla (ANSI) C but in a
GCC-C-variant, other compilers do not like these include files.

Is there some hope that at least the Linux kernel interface definition files and
everything recursively included from these files will be rewritten in vanilla
ANSI C?

Jörg

--
EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
js@cs.tu-berlin.de (uni)
schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily