Date: Tue, 09 Apr 1996 20:15:29 -0700 From: Josh MacDonald <jmacd@CS.Berkeley.EDU> To: Warner Losh <imp@village.org> Cc: Robert Withrow <witr@rwwa.com>, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GNU binutils port Message-ID: <199604100315.UAA11354@paris.CS.Berkeley.EDU> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 06 Apr 1996 16:29:05 MST." <199604062329.QAA26137@rover.village.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> : Out of curiosity, why is that (both of thats that is... ;-) > > Because binutils doesn't support FreeBSD's shared libraries. Also, > gcc is bundled with FreeBSD, so there is no need to have it as a port. > This, and the claim that gcc 'compiles out of the box' is just not true! It frustrates me a lot that eveyone seems to think so, but if you'll actually try pushing the compiler or using the c++ front end, you will discover lots of ways in which it does not configure itself properly. The latest round of g++ bug reports I have sent in have come back with the message that "this bug will be fixed in version 2.8.0, the next major release". FreeBSD is still running 2.6.3! The further FreeBSD gets away from the head of the gcc branch, the less willing people are going to be to use it. I personally don't have enough knowledge of FreeBSD to make the binutils upgrade, but you can avoid the current assembler `problems by undeffing ASM_WEAKEN_LABEL in the config file. The GNU binutils 1.x ld works well enough to upgrade compilers as well. The last time this came up the core team was saying "We don't want to change compilers right before the 2.1 release and break everything." How about now, its really time. Otherwise, people will come up to me and say, "You still run FreeBSD, Josh?" and I'll answer yes, and they'll laugh, "Ha, you guys are still using gcc-2.6!" Its getting ridiculous, considering how easy it is to import the tree. NetBSD has it running, why, may I ask, is the 2.2 tree not tracking gcc-2.7? -josh > Actually, binutils compiles great on FreeBSD if you are using it as a > cross compiler to another, supported platform. :-(. > > All of this stems from the fact that ld in FreeBSD is a binutils 1.x > era ld and the needed functionality would be, ahhh, non-trivial to > bring forward into the 2.x line. > > There is some noise about ELF fixing all of this, but I'm not sure how > much of that is GEE WIZZ stuff, and how much is production quality > hardened code. With ELF, it would be very easy to use the latest > binutils 2.1. In fact, there is a ELF link kit for people that are > running -current that want to play around with this stuff, but memory > escapes me at the moment... > > Warner
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199604100315.UAA11354>