Re: [MiNT] GCC 4.2.2 and binary compatibility

[Vincent Rivière <vincent.riviere@freesbee.fr>]

> 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 !

Vincent