Re: [PATCH] gcc-plugins: Disable GCC plugins for compile test builds

[Mark Brown]

On Mon, Apr 07, 2025 at 02:33:40PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Apr 2025 at 14:10, Mark Brown <broonie@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > Arnd bisected this to c56f649646ec ("landlock: Log mount-related
> > denials") but that commit is fairly obviously not really at fault here,
> > most likely this is an issue in the plugin.  Given how disruptive having
> > key configs like this failing let's disable the plugins for compile test
> > builds until a fix is found.

> I'm not against this, but I do want to bring up the "are the plugins
> worth having at all" discussion again.

> They've been a pain before. Afaik, the actual useful cases are now
> done by actual real compiler support (and by clang, at that).

> Who actually *uses* the gcc plugins? They just worry me in general,
> and this is not the first time they have caused ICE problems.

There was a bit of discussion of that on IRC which didn't summon up huge
enthusiasm for them.  Arnd noted that:

    https://github.com/nyrahul/linux-kernel-configs

indicates that Talos 1.9.1 uses latent_entropy (but we didn't check how
accurate that survey is).  He also noted that GCC_PLUGIN_SANCOV is
obsolete as of GCC 6 (!) and both CC_HAVE_STACKPROTECTOR_TLS and
GCC_PLUGIN_STRUCTLEAK_BYREF_ALL as of GCC 12, Ard indicated he wasn't
worried about loosing CC_HAVE_STACKPROTECTOR_TLS.

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