Bug#304089: [PPC] Enable -mvrsave=yes by default

[Konstantinos Margaritis <markos@debian.gr>]

On Κυριακή 10 Απρίλιος 2005 23:32, Matthias Klose wrote:
> Konstantinos Margaritis writes:
> > Package: gcc-3.4
> > Version: 3.4.3-12
> > Severity: grave
> >
> > Apparently latest packages of gcc-3.4 have disabled -mvrsave=yes
> > for powerpc. This breaks existing software which uses Altivec and
> > it's also wrong. Even worse, it's not documented in the changelog
> > (Debian or normal). The code that is produced is unstable. Please
> > enable it by default.
>
> which Debian version did have the old behaviour?

Well, gcc 3.3 has -mvrsave=yes by default and also _I think_ the 
previous version of gcc i used (3.4.3-6) . It was after the upgrade 
to -12 that I noticed some strange behaviour in my programs and it 
was just then that I checked and found after a lot of frustration 
that it's turned off. I have discussed this with other powerpc 
developers (though on irc only, i don't have anything in email, and 
not only Debian developers) and they all confirm that this is a wrong 
and confusing move. At the very least it should post a warning when 
it finds altivec code, that -mvrsave is disabled. I don't deny that 
there are a few cases where the developer might want to leave it 
disabled, but these are the exceptions not the norm.

Please, reenable it, or at the very least put a warning and some entry 
in the changelog about this. It's truly too dangerous to leave it 
like that.

Konstantinos