Re: GCC and as

[Jason Bacon <outpaddling%yahoo.com@localhost>]

On 05/12/18 01:15, maya%netbsd.org@localhost wrote:
> It might be cool to have a single PREFER.toolchain=pkgsrc, introducing
> things like this to a particular chosen GCC version:
>
> .if ${PREFER.toolchain} == "pkgsrc"
> BUILDLINK_DEPMETHOD.binutils=	full
> .  include "../../devel/binutils/buildlink3.mk"
> CONFIGURE_ARGS+=	--with-gnu-as --with-as=${PREFIX}/bin/gas
> CONFIGURE_ARGS+=	--with-gnu-ld --with-ld=${PREFIX}/bin/gld
> .endif
>
> Introduce the relevant GCC_REQD and GFORTRAN_VERSION
> Make them required at bootstrap in a way that works
>
> We can keep your favourite GCC version until C++14/C++17 starts to
> appear in critical packages.
>
> then test for centos 5 at bootstrap and decide if you want to make it
> the default, or maybe test for linux x86 + old binutils.*
>
> (I know gcc.mk is kinda awful...)
>
> * Please solicit opinions before flipping a default, since this is
> pretty invasive and there are a few other old-CentOS users.
That sounds like a good idea.  I would suggest turning this on 
automatically for any Enterprise Linux system, e.g.

.if exists("/etc/redhat-release") || equivalent for SUSE Enterprise || 
better way to detect old toolchains

RHEL/CentOS 5 is already EOL, BTW.  6 is already showing symptoms and 
it's probably only a matter of time before we see problems on 7.  Once a 
RHEL release is branched, the core development utilities never get a 
major upgrade.
( Security and bug fix patches, yes, but not upgrades. )

RHEL 7 uses gcc 4.8, which is already too old for some packages. I'm 
configuring all my trees to use gcc5 as a base now
and will likely go to gcc6 soon.  binutils is at 2.27, which is actually 
newer than pkgsrc's 2.26, but in a couple years it will still
be 2.27 and what will the latest gcc packages require?