Re: [RFC] minimum gcc version for kernel: raise to gcc-4.3 or 4.6?

From: Arnd Bergmann
Date: Fri Dec 16 2016 - 14:58:39 EST


On Friday, December 16, 2016 4:54:33 PM CET Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> Hi Arnd,
>
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 11:56 AM, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Specifically on ARM, going further makes things rather useless especially
> > for build testing: with gcc-4.2, we lose support for ARMv7, EABI, and
> > effectively ARMv6 (as it relies on EABI for building reliably). Also,
> > the number of false-positive build warnings is so high that it is useless
> > for finding actual bugs from the warnings.
>
> If you start with that activity now, there's indeed a massive amount of
> warnings to look into.
> However, I've been build testing various configs with m68k-linux-gnu-gcc-4.1.2
> and looking at the compiler warnings for years, so I only have to look
> at new warnings.

What's the reason for sticking with gcc-4.1? Does this actually work better
for you than a more recent version, or is it just whatever you installed
when you started the build testing?

Arnd