Re: [PATCH v1 2/5] powerpc/32: Don't always pass -mcpu=powerpc to the compiler

[Segher Boessenkool]

On Mon, Jul 11, 2022 at 04:19:30PM +0200, Christophe Leroy wrote:
> Since commit 4bf4f42a2feb ("powerpc/kbuild: Set default generic
> machine type for 32-bit compile"), when building a 32 bits kernel
> with a bi-arch version of GCC, or when building a book3s/32 kernel,
> the option -mcpu=powerpc is passed to GCC at all time, relying on it
> being eventually overriden by a subsequent -mcpu=xxxx.
> 
> But when building the same kernel with a 32 bits only version of GCC,
> that is not done, relying on gcc being built with the expected default
> CPU.
> 
> This logic has two problems. First, it is a bit fragile to rely on
> whether the GCC version is bi-arch or not, because today we can have
> bi-arch versions of GCC configured with a 32 bits default. Second,
> there are some versions of GCC which don't support -mcpu=powerpc,
> for instance for e500 SPE-only versions.

More fundamentally, the *only* thing you should check biarch for is
for determining if you can use both -m32 and -m64 with the same
compiler.  Everything behaves identically in a biarch and a non-biarch
compiler, other than the latter screams bloody murder if you try to
change the architecture from 32 to 64 bit or vice versa.

> So, stop relying on this approximative logic and allow the user to
> decide whether he/she wants to use the toolchain's default CPU or if
> he/she wants to set one, and allow only possible CPUs based on the
> selected target.
> 
> Reported-by: Pali Rohár <pali@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Tested-by: Pali Rohár <pali@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Reviewed-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@xxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Segher Boessenkool <segher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@xxxxxxxxxx>

Reviewed-by: Segher Boessenkool <segher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Looks good to me.  This untangles/demystifies quite some code :-)


Segher