Re: [MiNT] GCC 4.2.2 and binary compatibility

[Peter Slegg <p.slegg@scubadivers.co.uk>]

On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:40:21 , Vincent Riviÿre <vincent.riviere@freesbee.fr> 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 ?


I see, so we can't run GCC 4 on Mint just yet ?

I had a quick look at the release notes for some of the versions
between 3 and 4 and there are hundreds of changes. Hardly surprising
since 2.95.3 dates from March 2001

A few weeks ago I suggested a SpareMint packaging Blitz to
see if we can get people updating as many packages as possible.
With a new GCC I guess some things will be updated anyway.

Peter