Re: gcc vs egcs

["J.H.M. Dassen" <jdassen@wi.leidenuniv.nl>]

On Tue, Jan 19, 1999 at 14:50:43 -0800, G. Crimp wrote:
> 	The egcs versions of gcc and g++ are not both yet ready for prime
> time.  I may get corrected on this,

Indeed.

> but I think it is gcc that still has some bugs,

Wrong. To quote /usr/doc/gcc/README.Debian:
:- FSF gcc 2.7.2.x provides a reliable C compiler that has been used in the
:  development of the 2.0.x (stable) series of Linux kernels (from which the
:  Debian 2.1 default kernel is derived).
:  The optimisation behaviour of egcs gcc is different and has caused egcs
:  gcc-compiled 2.0.x kernels not to function properly [*]; therefore we need
:  an FSF gcc 2.7.2.x C compiler.
:
:[*] If you insist on using egcs gcc, gcc 2.8.1 or PGCC for compiling 2.0.x
:    kernels, you can find patches for the problems that have been found so
:    far at http://www.suse.de/~florian/kernel+egcs.html .

This is a problem in the kernel source, not in EGCS gcc. The 2.0.x kernel
source makes unjustified assumptions abouth the compiler's optimisation
behaviour which are only valid with FSF gcc 2.7.2.x, not with EGCS gcc or
FSF gcc 2.8.x .

Once the 2.2.x kernel series is rolling, we'll switch to EGCS for C
compilation too in "unstable", so future Debian versions will use EGCS as
the default compiler for C, C++, Objective-C etc.

Ray
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