Re: Linux 2.4.3-ac12

Alan Cox
2001-04-22T13:09:38Z

> Are you being deliberately obtuse? 2.97+ snapshots do all support
> builtin_expect, which is what we were discussing.

I think we are having different conversations here.

The only valid inputs to the question are

Recommended
-----------
egcs-1.1.2 (miscompiles strstr <2.4.4pre)
gcc 2.95.* (miscompiles strstr <2.4.4pre)

Recommended (for -ac at least)
------------------------------
rh-gcc 2.96-69+ (DAC960 fails due to gcc ABI change)
rh-gcc 2.96-78+

For the Brave
-------------
gcc 3.0 snapshots

There are no gcc 2.97 snapshots that compile the kernel correctly because
they have the broken bitfield packing ABI change.

So if your belief is that we should insist on gcc 3.0 for __builtin_expect
then we should simply remove use of it completely. For 2.5.x it will be worth
making heavy use of once gcc 3.0 is out.

My belief however is that several million people have gcc 2.96-69+, about 50
are likely to have random cvs snapshots and none of them are going to build
kernels with them anyway, as they wont work __builtin_expect or otherwise.

Alan