[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [MiNT] MiNTLib 0.59.1 for your testing pleasure....

On Wed, 9 Jun 2010, Paul Wratt wrote:


The replacement of 2.95.3 with 4.5.0 was discussed some time around
Christmas 2009, in that whoever build the latest gcc (4.4.5?) had a
system as follows:
gcc-2.95.3
gcc-3.3.6
gcc-4.5.0


Hello Paul,
In My Humble Opinion, and someone can post if I am wrong, I see no need at all for GCC 3.3.6, almost everything that builds with 3.3.6 should build with 4.5.0. On the other hand, I still see a need for 2.95.3, mainly for those without 68060 / AranyM / Coldfire CPUs, because I am pretty sure with the newer GCC, half of the long compile time on a stock Falcon or TT will be spent just loading GCC. 


I am unsure as to the exact issues that arise, but there are some with
source code written for the older gcc, and I know of certain sources
that require specific gcc to build (cant name any packages off the top
of my head).
Again, in my humble opinion, these packages should be fixed to compile with the latest GCC if there is a GCC compatibility issue. I know one of the goals that has been discussed for SpareMiNT is to have the ability to rebuild the package collection in some sort of Build Farm. Achieving that is much more difficult if we have to use GCC x for this, GCC y for that, and GCC z for the other. Those packages might need to be excluded then. 


What are the issues regarding allowing this sort of installation via
RPM's, and I understand that 2.95.3 would need to be
repackaged/rebuilt to maintain this consistency.
I am of the opinion that SpareMiNT should not 'directly' support this configuration. You could easily have gcc and gcc4, but for MiNT on Coldfire, we will want to start out with gcc4. MiNTLib, in it's current configured manner, now requires gcc4 to be built because of enabling Coldfire, and gcc2 lacks the ability to compile Coldfire code as currently configured.
I would be of the opinion that if someone wants a hybrid system with both GCC's installed, they can set it up themselves rather than having SpareMiNT provide the support, or they can just downgrade / upgrade as needed. Alien is your friend in this regard.
When I was still working on testing GCC4 compiles, I had both installed side by side, and just renamed binaries, and had a script to set the symlinks to the revision I wanted to use for doing something. 


I have a great number of older sources with which to learn
Atari/MiNTLib patch process, ones that are within the time frame of
the current easymint distribution. Most of those sources are changed
considerable with current versions, so I would be loathed to add 4.5.0
compatibility to those older sources as well (I am talking about
100-200 source packages).
I would be surprised if all of those packages would fail to build in GCC4. Others can speak to this more than I can, but there is not a huge compatibility gap, unless there is assembly in the code. 

Keith