On Tue, Aug 21, 2007 at 10:49:49PM +0200, Segher Boessenkool wrote: >> How many people e.g. test -rc kernels compiled with gcc 3.2? > > Why would that matter? It either works or not. If it doesn't > work, it can either be fixed, or support for that old compiler > version can be removed.
One bug report "kernel doesn't work / crash / ... when compiled with gcc 3.2, but works when compiled with gcc 4.2" will most likely be lost in the big pile of unhandled bugs, not cause the removal of gcc 3.2 support... > The only other policy than "only remove support if things are > badly broken" would be "only support what the GCC team supports", > which would be >= 4.1 now; and there are very good arguments for > supporting more than that with the Linux kernel. No, it's not about bugs in gcc, it's about kernel+gcc combinations that are mostly untested but officially supported. E.g. how many kernel developers use kernels compiled without unit-at-a-time? And unit-at-a-time does paper over some bugs, e.g. at about half a dozen section mismatch bugs I've fixed recently are not present with it. But as the discussions have shown gcc 4.0 is currently too high for making a cut, and it is not yet the right time for raising the minimum required gcc version. > Segher cu Adrian -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/