Re: [RFC PATCH 1/8] compiler/gcc: Emit build-time warning for GCC prior to version 4.8

[Joe Perches]

On Fri, 2020-01-10 at 18:35 +0100, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 5:56 PM Will Deacon <will@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Prior to version 4.8, GCC may miscompile READ_ONCE() by erroneously
> > discarding the 'volatile' qualifier:
> > 
> > https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=58145
> > 
> > We've been working around this using some nasty hacks which make
> > READ_ONCE() both horribly complicated and also prevent us from enforcing
> > that it is only used on scalar types. Since GCC 4.8 is pretty old for
> > kernel builds now, emit a warning if we detect it during the build.
> 
> No objection to recommending gcc-4.8, but I think this should either
> just warn once during the kernel build instead of for every file, or
> it should become a hard requirement.

It might as well be a hard requirement as
gcc 4.8.0 is already nearly 7 years old.

gcc 4.6.0 released 2011-03-25
gcc 4.8.0 released 2013-03-22

Perhaps there are exceedingly few to zero new
instances using gcc compiler versions < 4.8