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Re: What's the status coexistance between egcs and gcc packages?



Rob Browning wrote:

> (I had a hard time deciding if this was -devel or -policy material.)
>
> The changelog for egcc claims it's now the standard for Debian.  Is
> that true?  I'm asking because I need it here for other projects, and
> I want to know how that can/should interact with building my Debian
> packges.
>
> Is it OK to compile Debian packages with egcs now?  Also if egcs is
> now the standard, then shouldn't it provide /usr/bin/gcc, or are we
> supposed to just stick calling cc?  If the latter, then why does the
> egcs C++ package provide g++?

The current situation regarding gcc is rather complex.

I had fully intended to make egcc the standard gcc for debian.
Unfortunately, a lot of people complained.  Some of their complaints
were very serious: after all, egcc still can't compile the kernel
properly.  So for those who wanted an ultra-conservative C compiler, and
who needed a properly working g++/libstdc++ suite, I built a hybrid
environment.

The standard C compiler for Debian is gcc, built from the 2.7.2.3
sources.  The standard C++ compiler for Debian is in the g++ package,
which was built from egcs.  The g77 fortran compiler is also an egcs
product.  The standard c++ library package is libstdc++2.8, and all c++
programs in Debian should be rebuilt to make use of it.

This environment has at least one serious disadvantage:  It is no longer
possible to use the /usr/bin/gcc front-end binary to compile c++ code.
There's nothing I can do to change that; the 2.7.2.3 front end doesn't
know how to look for the egcs binaries in gcc-lib, and also doesn't know
the new compiler flags egcs added.  You have to stick with /usr/bin/g++
for now.

As egcs becomes more stable, I'm going to start phasing it in as the
standard gcc one architecture at a time.  (If you look at the egcs
debian/rules, you'll find most of it is conditional spaghetti based on
whether egcs is the standard or secondary C compiler on that
architecture.)

--Galen



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