Re: [PATCH v5 1/2] kbuild: move vmlinux.a build rule to scripts/Makefile.vmlinux_a

[Miguel Ojeda]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2026 at 2:40 PM Nicolas Schier <nsc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> The simpliest solution would be to declare binutils 2.38 as build
> dependency; but I am afraid that it is still "too new", right now.

>From the last bump at commit 118c40b7b503 ("kbuild: require gcc-8 and
binutils-2.30"), it seems binutils' minimum is supposed to go at
roughly the same pace as GCC's. Cc'ing Arnd.

Debian Old Stable has 2.40, so we would leave out Old Old Stable which
would have a recent enough GCC otherwise, so I guess that means we
cannot?

(I was taking a look at this minimum yesterday, because I was thinking
of removing the comment for a workaround related to binutils <= 2.36
in `Documentation/rust/quick-start.rst` when I bump the Rust minimum.
Of course, that comment is less critical, and those debugging a
Rust-enabled kernel likely have newer binutils anyway).

Cheers,
Miguel