egcs: Problems compiling recen Linux kernels on intel

[Joe Buck]

> The FAQ mentions a problem with linux/arch/i386/kernel/process.c. This can
> be worked around (without bad effects I can see) by specifying
> -fno-strength-reduce for that file. Works up to linux-2.1.70 and
> egcs-971201, at least.

Please don't get the Linux people starting using -fno-strength-reduce
again.  You're just saying "I want my kernel to run more slowly".
That workaround is inferior to using the patch.

> Somebody on linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu mentioned that, I've no way to
> know who it was now.

The bug is in Linux and should be patched there.  Historically, Linux has
often used unsafe assembly language code that was experimentally verified
to work with particular gcc versions (as in: this code is OK if we trick
gcc into not optimizing it).  New gcc versions have broken this code.
This happened when 2.7.x came out, and it's happening again with egcs and
2.8.0.