gcc 4.8.0 prerequisites

[Andrew Haley]

On 04/07/2013 03:24 PM, Dennis Clarke wrote:
> 
>> On 04/07/2013 02:46 PM, Dennis Clarke wrote:
>>>  
>>>> Required versions of gmp/mpfr/mpc clearly stated in the docs:
>>>> http://gcc.gnu.org/install/prerequisites.html
>>>> I'm not sure how you could miss that.
>>>>
>>>> cloog/ppl/isl are not required (unless you want the optional Graphite
>>>> loop optimisation support)
>>>>
>>>> Systemtap is not required. If you have it, it needs to be a fairly
>>>> recent version.
>>>>
>>>> http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/InstallingGCC gives a foolproof recipe.
>>>
>>> I take some exception to the language on that page and perhaps I can
>>> edit it to be a bit more cross platform and in the spirit of open
>>> source.
>>
>> GCC is free software.
> 
> Yes, of course. Free as in beer. Love it. 

No, as in freedom, not as in beer.

> However it would be nice, and I must find a way to find the right
> tone here such that I am not perceived as picking an argument for
> the sake of entertainment or some axe to grind,

Please try harder to do that.

> if the RTFM-averse crowd were told that "hey, no promise anything is
> up to date or even works" unless you build it yourself.

I don't know what this even means.

>>> The libs that are really needed, gmp/mpfr/mpc do *need* to be built
>>> from sources on Solaris.  They may be available on the BSD's and may
>>> be available for Debian and Red Hat Enterprise Linux but I run all
>>> of these operating systems in fairly up to date revs.  None of them
>>> are up to date with regards to gmp/mpfr and mpc. Not one of them.
>>
>> In which case, all you have to do is go as far as the second
>> paragraph, which says:
>>
>>  * Alternatively, after extracting the GCC source archive, simply run
>>    the ./contrib/download_prerequisites script in the GCC source
>>    directory. That will download the support libraries and create
>>    symlinks, causing them to be built automatically as part of the GCC
>>    build process.
> 
> Therein lay my reasons to bristle a bit.  The bits one gets from the cute
> download_prerequisites script are dusty at best.

It's deliberate.  These are the versions that have been thoroughly
tested and are known to work well with GCC.

> The versions provided by the "download_prerequisites" are years
> behind the times and much has been done in those numerical software
> projects.
> 
> So perhaps the script and the tarballs at
> ftp://gcc.gnu.org/pub/gcc/infrastructure/ could be brought into this
> decade?  Couldn't hurt.

It certainly could hurt, and more recent versions have been known to
break GCC.  However, this is probably a good time to upgrade them.
All we need to know is which versions have been reasonably widely
tested and are known to work well with GCC.

Andrew.