Re: building old gcc3 for i386-linux on recent x86-linux?

[Florian Weimer <fw at deneb dot enyo dot de>]

* Steffen Dettmer:

> On recent linux, as required by recent hardware (for example,
> supporting 70 GB RAM), libs are usually advanced and even
> language (C++) is. So when using a recent linux dev env, we would
> need to port the applications to old versions, which is far away
> from fun (developers don't like downgrading own code to old
> libs), so I think it is essential to develop with no newer
> version than needed. Also, we like to met as much bugs as
> possible on our simulation environment, because it is easier to
> debug than the embedded target.

Often, system administrators carve out a dedicated VM from the whole
system which runs legacy applications.

If the application is not really legacy and needs to be ported so that
the separate VM isn't required, we certainly do not expect a huge
effort.  At least as far as the toolchain is concerned; it's typically
possible to get current compilers into a mode where they still can
process rather questionable code.  GUI libraries are a different
matter.  I also expect that some of the effort in such porting
projects stems from a desire to clean up technically unrelated issues
in the code base.

If your experience is different, it would be interesting to know what
the pain points are.