Re: Debian Squeeze gcc 4.3 and 4.4 why two C compilers?

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

On Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:52:38 -0800, David Christensen wrote:

> I recently installed Debian 6.0.0 i386 Squeeze on a system with NVIDIA
> graphics.  When I went to build/ install the proprietary NVIDIA video
> driver, it wanted gcc.  So I installed the Debian gcc package.  The
> NVIDIA installer then informed me that the version of gcc installed on
> my system (4.4) did not match the version used to compile the kernel
> (4.3).  So, I installed the Debian package gcc-4.3, set the CC
> environment variable, and installed the NVIDIA driver.
> 
> 
> Why does Debian have, and I presume use (?), two versions of gcc?

Two versions? 

I'd say there are even more (3.4, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5...) and I'm 
afraid this is not a Debian specific (other distributions should do the 
same way) :-)

Different GCC versions may be needed to match different software 
compilation requirements.

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón