Re: [MiNT] GCC 4.2.2 and binary compatibility

[Alan Hourihane <alanh@fairlite.demon.co.uk>]

On Fri, 2007-12-07 at 22:40 +0100, Vincent Rivière wrote:
> > Yes, I'm definitely going to submit them here.
> 
> That's a very good thing to update the sources in order to be compilable 
> with newer compilers...
> 
>  > Frank - given that you are the maintainer of FreeMiNT - what's your
>  > position on leaving gcc 2.95.3 finally behind and upgrading to GCC 4.2.2
>  > for FreeMiNT kernel builds ?
> 
> ... but I'm not sure GCC 4.2.2 is mature enough to fully replace GCC 
> 2.95.3 in the MiNT world.
> 
> The main reason is, for the moment, GCC 4.2.2 only works as a 
> cross-compiler ! On my site I provide the binaries for Cygwin, allowing 
> to produce MiNT binaries from MS Windows (personally, I don't need 
> more). Some people reported successful builds on Linux.
> 
> With my GCC patch, MiNT becomes a supported *target* for GCC. But the 
> MiNT *host* is not officially supported by GCC. I mean that GCC 4.2.2 
> needs additional patching to be compiled itself for MiNT. Until now, 
> haven't found enough courage to try to do this. But maybe I'm a bit 
> pessimist, and It may not be so difficult ?
> 
> However, I've already made the work for binutils 2.18 : the patch is 
> valid for the MiNT target and host ! The MiNT native binaries are 
> available on the unsupported part on my site. They can be easily 
> recompiled, and may be RPMized !
> 
> Seriously, I think things should be done in this order :
> 
> 1) Update the sources of the various projects (MiNTLib, FreeMiNT, 
> EmuTOS...) to be compilable with GCC 4.2.2. It can't be a bad thing, 
> because the new GCC is more strict and cant point to hidden potential 
> bugs. The compilation can be tested with the Cygwin binaries (or other).
> 
> 2) Repackage the Cygwin GCC binaries with the latest MiNTLib version.
> 
> 3) Patch GCC 4.2.2 in order to be compiled for a MiNT host, in order to 
> have a native compiler.
> 
> 4) Compile the various projects with GCC 4.2.2 in order to provide 
> official binaries, embedding the latest MiNTLib.
> 
> Well... we just have to do it, now !

Right,

Vincent - do you want to get GCC 4.2.2 done for MiNT host ?

Alan.