Re: [PATCH, RFT] ARM: use --fix-v4bx to allow building ARMv4 with future gcc

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 5:57 PM, Linus Walleij <linus.walleij@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 2:00 PM, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> gcc-6.0 and later marks support for ARMv3 and ARMv4 as 'deprecated',
>> meaning that this is expected to be removed at some point in the future,
>> with gcc-8.0 as the earliest.
>>
>> When building the kernel, the difference between ARMv4 and ARMv4T
>> is relatively small because the kernel never runs THUMB instructions
>> on ARMv4T and does not need any support for interworking.
>>
>> For any future compiler that does not support -march=armv4, we now
>> fall back to -march=armv4t as the architecture level selection,
>> but keep using -march=armv4 by default as long as that is supported
>> by the compiler.
>>
>> Similarly, the -mtune=strongarm110 and -mtune=strongarm1100 options
>> will go away at the same time as -march=armv4, so this adds a check
>> to see if the compiler supports them, falling back to no -mtune
>> option otherwise.
>>
>> Compiling with -march=armv4t leads the compiler to using 'bx reg'
>> instructions instead of 'mov pc,reg'. This is not supported on
>> ARMv4 based CPUs, but the linker can work around this by rewriting
>> those instructions to the ARMv4 version if we pass --fix-v4bx
>> to the linker. This should work with binutils-2.15 (released
>> May 2004) or higher, and we can probably assume that anyone using
>> gcc-7.x will have a much more recent binutils version as well.
>>
>> However, in order to still allow users of old toolchains to link
>> the kernel, we only pass the option to linkers that support it,
>> based on a $(ld-option ...) call. I'm intentionally passing the
>> flag to all linker versions here regardless of whether it's needed
>> or not, so we can more easily spot any regressions if something
>> goes wrong.
>>
>> For consistency, I'm passing the --fix-v4bx flag for both the
>> vmlinux final link and the individual loadable modules.
>> The module loader code already interprets the R_ARM_V4BX relocations
>> in loadable modules and converts bx instructions into mov even
>> when running on ARMv4T or ARMv5 processors. This is now redundant
>> when we pass --fix-v4bx to the linker for building modules, but
>> I see no harm in leaving the current implementation and doing both.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx>
>> ---
>> Please test by making the -march=armv4t switch unconditional
>> and see if that results in a working kernel
>
> I did this:
> diff --git a/arch/arm/Makefile b/arch/arm/Makefile
> index 66e46aec0cd0..3944ecd6cd31 100644
> --- a/arch/arm/Makefile
> +++ b/arch/arm/Makefile
> @@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ arch-$(CONFIG_CPU_32v6K)
> =-D__LINUX_ARM_ARCH__=6 $(call cc-option,-march=armv6k,
>  endif
>  arch-$(CONFIG_CPU_32v5)                =-D__LINUX_ARM_ARCH__=5 $(call
> cc-option,-march=armv5te,-march=armv4t)
>  arch-$(CONFIG_CPU_32v4T)       =-D__LINUX_ARM_ARCH__=4 -march=armv4t
> -arch-$(CONFIG_CPU_32v4)                =-D__LINUX_ARM_ARCH__=4 $(call
> cc-option,-march=armv4,-march=armv4t)
> +arch-$(CONFIG_CPU_32v4)                =-D__LINUX_ARM_ARCH__=4 -march=armv4t
>  arch-$(CONFIG_CPU_32v3)                =-D__LINUX_ARM_ARCH__=3 -march=armv3
>
> Built and booted on the Gemini platform.
>
> It crashes immediately and goes into the boot loader
> on thos FA-526 based platform.

Hmm, maybe the decompressor needs the fixup separately. Can you try
something like this completely untested patch on top?

     Arnd

diff --git a/arch/arm/boot/compressed/Makefile
b/arch/arm/boot/compressed/Makefile
index f0548b6948f1..0e141b2cae98 100644
--- a/arch/arm/boot/compressed/Makefile
+++ b/arch/arm/boot/compressed/Makefile
@@ -134,6 +134,11 @@ endif
 ifeq ($(CONFIG_CPU_ENDIAN_BE8),y)
 LDFLAGS_vmlinux += --be8
 endif
+
+ifdef CONFIG_CPU_32v4
+LDFLAGS_vmlinux += --fix-v4bx
+endif
+
 # ?
 LDFLAGS_vmlinux += -p
 # Report unresolved symbol references