On Thu, 24 Jan 2002, Wakko Warner wrote: > There's no gcc in debian that will compile the DAC960 module on my alpha > noritake system (as1000a) gcc-3.0 doesn't compile 2.4.17 right, gcc 2.95.4 > bombs with an error compiling the module, and gcc 2.95.2 (debian potato) > just eats all memory and bomb compiling that module.
This is an old problem, but one that was unfortunately never fixed. Can you try compiling it without optimisation? IIRC, it still won't compile, but it may be worth checking again. > Someone running rh 7.1 and gcc 2.96 was able to compile a kernel for me and > it's working great. DAC960's are strange beasts in some Alphas (only certain firmware revs work and they're not easily upgradable since the flash chips are hard to find now), so I personally never saw a great need to bump it up on my list of things to look into. Plus, I don't have a DAC960 to test with anyway, so I couldn't verify anything other than the "it compiles now" type of results. > Why is there no gcc 2.96 for alpha (or for that matter, no other arch than > ia64) Because it's an abomination unto the GNU. Just kidding. RedHat "fathered" 2.96; it was never an official GNU release. In the beginning of 2.96, it had some major problems with it and it would've been impossible to turn to the main GCC folks to fix those problems since they didn't sanction the release (and they had made enough changes to the CVS tree since RH found a snapshot that they could call "2.96" that they couldn't easily backport many of the changes). So, that means that, if we needed to file bugs, we'd have to rely on RedHat as our "support". I don't know about you, but I wouldn't consider having Debian rely on RedHat support for something as important as the toolchain :-P In the IA-64 case, though, it's a little different. Until 3.1 comes out, I don't think IA-64 support in even the 3.x series is fantastic. Most of the work that is being done is being done in either gcc mainline CVS (which we don't want to package for main Debian use for a number of reasons) or against the 2.96 sources that were released by RedHat and affiliates. I wasn't in on the decision-making process with IA-64, but I can agree with their choice as far as that goes even in hindsight. The platform is new enough that a working toolchain is needed...doesn't matter where it comes from yet. Once the GCC make an official release that works well on IA-64, I have no doubts that they'll be switching over to an official release for their default compiler. C
