Re: Compiler for Red Hat Linux 8

["H . J . Lu" <hjl at lucon dot org>]

On Wed, Jul 18, 2001 at 12:01:29PM -0700, Joe Buck wrote:
> 
> > why I suggested making bug fix releases of gcc every 2 or 3 weeks
> > so that there is a chance that we can use a *released* GCC for
> > Linux distributions. Of course, I am assuming that those bug fix
> > releases fix the reported Linux build bugs.
> 
> It's not necessary to do a whole lot of releases to make this happen: we
> have a 3.0 CVS branch.  Volunteers who care about this can build from a
> CVS gcc (or download prebuilt releases from daily snapshots, like those
> CodeSourcery provides) and report failures.  Our target for 3.0.1 is
> August 1.  But it's not necessary to wait until that date to help find and
> fix problems.
> 
> And remember that there will be lots of problems in apps as well as the
> compiler.  Incorrect #ifdefs that break with the bump in major version
> number; invalid C++ code that happened to work with 2.95.x, etc.

It is more than that. That is one reason why it is not practical to
download a gcc snapshot everyday or every week and try to rebuild
the whole distribution unless the whole distribution has been built
successfully with the current major gcc release before. What may
happpen is noone can use the to-be-released gcc 3.0.1 to build the
whole Linux distribution before it is released. They may take a gcc
snapshot and go from there. When they finally find all the compiler
bugs, gcc 3.0.1 has been released. Then they will start all over
again. As the result, you still need to make gcc 3.0.2 if you want to
use it to build the whole Linux distribution. Of course, things will
be different if you want to base the gcc release schedule on the xxxx
Linuxx distribution release schedule.


H.J.