Compiler for Red Hat Linux 8

[Geoff Keating <geoffk at geoffk dot org>]

It's now time for us here at Red Hat to begin planning for the next
major Red Hat Linux release.  One of the first questions that we're
looking at is "which compiler should we use?"

At present, we have three compilers for the linux releases.  There is
the default compiler, which is currently based off a 2.96 snapshot.
There is a special compiler for the kernel, which is based off egcs
1.1.2.  There is also a GNUPro compiler, which is a Red Hat-released
compiler on which we offer full support; it came out of the Red Hat
internal tree.

We'd really like to get this list down to one compiler.  These
compilers have subtle incompatibilities with each other, and it's really
annoying that we can't fully support the compiler that comes with the
system.

So, one plan being considered is that we take a compiler out of the
Red Hat internal tree (based sometime after 3.0), make a release, and
ship that as the default compiler.  Then if we can make the kernel
work with this compiler, we have one compiler, which we can fully
support.  We didn't have time to do either of these for RHL 7, but we
do for RHL 8.

The other problem with what we did for RHL 7 was that it was difficult
for other distributors to be compatible with our system, because the
2.96 snapshot wasn't binary-compatible with any FSF release.  With the
release of GCC 3.0, this shouldn't happen for the new compiler; other
distributors will be able to use any 3.0-compatible compiler.

[I know IA64 has a completely different set of problems; I'm mostly
concerned about IA32 and Alpha at this point, but if anyone has
suggestions about IA64 we're happy to hear them; the main problem
seems to be that the ABI for IA64 is still changing, but the internal
tree is better for IA64 than the FSF releases at this point.  I also
know about the glibc issues on all platforms, but that's a separate
issue also.]

So, how do people feel about this?  Does the SC have an opinion?

-- 
- Geoffrey Keating <geoffk@redhat.com>