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Message-Id: <17c0b56b663fce6f28b46e3c42dfbaf9@kernel.crashing.org>
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:08:33 +0200
From: Segher Boessenkool <segher@...nel.crashing.org>
To: Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org>
Cc: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
Jarek Poplawski <jarkao2@...pl>, Andi Kleen <ak@...e.de>,
linux-arch@...r.kernel.org, Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@...cle.com>
Subject: Re: RFC: drop support for gcc < 4.0
>>> 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...
While that might be true, it's a separate problem.
>> 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.
What does "officially supported" mean? Especially the
"officially" part. Is this documented somewhere?
> 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.
If any developer is interested in supporting some certain old
compiler version, he should be testing regularly with it. Sounds
like that's you ;-)
If no developer is interested, we shouldn't claim to support
using that compiler version.
> 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.
Agreed.
Segher
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