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Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2010 17:33:22 +0100
From: Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@arm.linux.org.uk>
To: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: florian@mickler.org, x86@kernel.org, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
        Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] x86: don't compile with gcc-3.3.3
Message-ID: <20100913163322.GA3819@n2100.arm.linux.org.uk>
References: <1284366708-30154-1-git-send-email-florian@mickler.org> <1284367195.2275.29.camel@laptop>
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On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 10:39:55AM +0200, Peter Zijlstra wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-09-13 at 10:31 +0200, florian@mickler.org wrote:
> > hpa commented on bug 16506[1] :
> > "Please note that gcc-3.3.3 is known broken on x86; gcc-3.4 is the oldest
> > version which is known to *not* be broken."
> > 
> > References: 
> > 	[0]: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16633
> > 	[1]: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16506#c28
> > 
> > If that is indeed so, we should abort the build? No?
> 
> Does it in fact still build with 3.4? I seem to recall some talk about
> pushing the minimum version to 4.x for x86, although I can't remember
> where..

I'm still building kernels with gcc 3.4.3 (for the ARMs which don't
require a later compiler) or gcc 4.3.2+patches for those which do.

ARM gcc 3.4.3 is certainly noticably faster than gcc 4.3.2 even on
x86 - and as long as ARM gcc 3.4.3 works, and there's not great pain
in allowing it to build the arch-independent stuff, I see no reason
to deny it across the entire kernel build.

I think we should have a minimum compiler version for the generic
kernel, and individual minimum compiler versions for the architectures,
so that arches can specify a higher minimum compiler version if they
have specific problems there.