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Re: [MiNT] 030-version of gcc
Hi Petr,
Petr Stehlik wrote:
I see in Debian that all architectures are moving to GCC 3.3.x. Not only
i386 but all the 12 (or how many) architectures - including m68k. The
compiler has improved since 2.95.x, there is no doubt about it. I admit
there were bugs in gcc 3.0.x but they have been fixed since then.
That's really true. Apple has also adopted GCC 3.3 for its development
kit. I think that they were not very satisfied with the 3.1 used
before. I think that it is a part of 3.3.x improvements that has been
made on GNU C.
The new compiler is more strict and can explore more problematic C code
in compile time so it helps programmer to write better programs. It also
produces better code (hopefully).
Compiling TinyGL and POV 3.1g with GCC 3.3 allowed me to see that it
has a better optimizer. All is not perfect, but it should be noticed.
I personally would vote for upgrading the Atari world to latest GCC. But
as I don't use Sparemint at all (I have something against the RPM format
- I am a hard DPKG fan) I can't estimate how much work is it to
recompile C++ libraries with the new compiler.
Anyway this work must be done. And it is not a specific ATARI problem
speaking about SpareMiNT. Ported Unix applications had evolved.
I can imagine that if the Sparemint offered an automatic net
install/upgrade system similar to apt that would allow me to get a
working system with one single command (without dependency hell) I'd
switch to Sparemint and then could help with the recompilation.
You're helpful. That's kind to propose your help.
I can set up an ARAnyM compile farm on servers at the office and with
the available power recompiling the Sparemint would be a matter of
hours. And if cross compilers were used it would be matter of minutes, I
guess.
When I think about Patrice Mandin compiling GCC 3.3 under ARAnyM, I
must say that nobody can be more helpful than you are !
P.S. I wish the FreeMiNT 2.0 was finally released. This 10 years of
alpha stage hidden in CVS makes the non-CVS trackers feel like MiNT is
dead and so they switch to something else (like win xp). Arguing for or
against gcc 3.3.x is useless if there remains just a few people that use
it.
That's true ! But who is in charge of this work ?
Best regards,
-- François LE COAT
Author of Eureka 2.12 (2D Graph Describer, 3D Modeller)
http://eureka.atari.org
mailto:lecoat@atari.org